Tonight's Target: Jesse Litsch

Jesse Litsch is a 22-year-old rookie who'd never pitched above AA until the Jays called him up for an emergency start in May.

His emergency start, against Baltimore, was incredible, he got within one out of a complete game, allowed four hits and one run, and induced 21 ground balls vs. only 2 flyouts.

Since then, he's been less inspiring. He had three straight terrible starts, hitting rock bottom against the Yanks on May 30th when he allowed five earned runs and didn't make it out of the first inning. He was in AAA for June, but the Jays brought him back up to replace A.J. Burnett in the rotation for a July 3rd start against the A's, and Litsch threw 7 scoreless innings (of course, it's the A's).

He beat the Red Sox last Sunday, but wasn't inspiring in doing so, he allowed 10 baserunners in 6.2 innings.

Litsch throws a low 90s fastball and a change. Think Ryan Feierabend. Like Feierabend, Litsch belongs in AAA, not with the big club.

Litsch is very hittable. If the M's aren't distracted by his uncanny resemblance to Alfred E. Neuman, they should be able to do damage.

Miguel Batista (9-7, 4.38) goes for the good guys. Game time is 4:07 PST at whatever they call SkyDome now. It's on KSTW-11.