"What, you guys didn't know that"

-Cito Gaston, on Dustin McGowan's knee surgery

Yeah, that's right—McGowan had knee surgery on July 9th. Today, Jordan Bastian reported that when asked about recovery time-lines for injured starters Shaun Marcum and Dustin McGowan, Cito dropped that bomb. Apparently, it was common knowledge to Cito.

The story goes that McGowan had surgery to repair cartilage when he injured his knee while doing conditioning drills; Riccardi indicated that the injury will take around six weeks to recover from the operation. McGowan was doing light work in the farm after recovering from right shoulder surgery last July.
This pretty much puts the lid on any hope of McGowan coming back this season.

Hopefully the knee injury is as nonchalant as Gaston's response.

Shawn Marcum AA rehab start

This is very good news, indeed.

Shawn Marcum made the start last night in a AA pitching duel between the Fisher Cats and the Connecticut Defenders. The Cats whet on to win 1-0 (boxscore). Marcum himself had a very solid outting:

	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	ERA
Marcum	4.2	3	0	0	2	4	0	0.00

Although he only pitched 4.2, he only gave up three hits on 19 batters faced.

Before this start, Marcum had made two rehab starts with Dunedin, only going a total of 6 innings over both. The Jays are slowly testing his arm; the fact that he only made two starts in HiA before going up to AA might mean that we could see him in the Big Leagues this season.

Since '05 Marcum's fastball has fallen from an average of 89.4 mph to 86.8 last year. Hopefully, in enough time, he can touch 90mph again