JP on AJ Burnett: He’s a psycho bitch

 

We’ve all known the kind of person in life, whether it be family, friends or work associates, that is constantly playing the blame game with others, accepting no personal responsibility for anything that goes on around them, quick to celebrate even the tiniest of victories, and quickly distancing themselves from any defeat. This my friends, is JP Ricciardi to a tee.

Earlier this week, JP went on the Fan 590, a Toronto based sports station.  (For disclosures sake, the radio station is owned by the same media company that owns the Blue Jays themselves. Think they’ll give JP a hard time? I didn’t think so either.) When the topic of AJ Burnett came up, JP was quick to question Burnett’s make-up. Here’s a selection of quotes:

“I don’t know if it’s psychological,” Ricciardi said on the FAN. “I don’t know if … he gets to a point where he feels something (and) he’s so scarred from being hurt so many times that he just backs off.”
“I think any guy who goes through an injury and has been injured a lot … well, they all fight through that.
“There’s times where guys just don’t know. They’ve been hurt so much they just shut it down. It’s probably their way of saying, `Hey, I better just take care of it.’

So maybe he’s a mental case who doesn’t want to play? He should €œman up€ and just get on with. Paraphrasing, but that’s what I get from the quotes.

During this interview no one, not the hosts, nor the fans, brought up the real facts that are most likely the reasoning behind AJ’s injury woes.

Here’s some straight up facts:

Going in, the Blue Jays had full knowledge of AJ Burnett’s past injuries. He’d had surgery, and frankly, they threw his arm off in Florida.

During his first season with the Jays, AJ was hurt again with an arm injury.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out heading into this season that AJ has to be babied on the mound. Strict pitch counts, occasionally giving him an extra days rest in-between starts, and easing up on his on the side throwing, these would all be prudent ways in trying to keep AJ healthy throughout the regular season.

What do the Jays do? Going back to our June 18th article on AJ getting hurt, we’ll cut and paste some pre-injury pitch counts;

Pitch Counts of AJ Burnett over the past seven starts: 118, 103, 103, 125, 117, 130, 82 (injury game)
That’s your answer right there JP. You’ve abused Burnett’s arm. The stupidity of yourself and manager John Gibbons for allowing these kinds of pitch counts, along with not giving him extra days of rest is the cause of the current injury. Will anything get done at the end of the day? (ie JP gets axed.) No, JP isn’t going anywhere. Maybe he thinks his €œget tough€ comments will rally AJ and the team. The reality is, he has shot off about players & the ball club on a monthly basis for the past six seasons, with no results.

JP, it’s time to look in the mirror when it comes to the AJ Burnett blame game.