Mickey Brantley Is Ben Affleck In Jersey Girl

News of Vernon Wells' shoulder injury came down yesterday and of course the obligatory big deal has been made of it.

My reaction has been a bit of an eye-roll and then a quick thumbs up to Mickey Brantley.

Whatever he may lack in inspiration for struggling hitters, Brantley more than makes up for with his PR savvy thinking.

There's no doubt that the team's struggles at the plate are due at least in part to injuries, but Brantley's "slip" admitting V-Dub's hidden injury was as well placed as a cold Molson Dry in front of me.

At the moment, the regular drunks (read: beat reporters) who follow the Jays are bored out of their minds and desperate for any type of story. They can't even dangle playoff aspirations in front of the die hards because even the glass-is-half-full types are cluing into what the rest of us knew shortly after the all-star break: the Jays aren't making the playoffs this year. Writing another cookie-cutter summary about a mean-nothing game focusing on the struggling Jays bats is about as appealing as looking through someone else's photo album.

Brantley's admission was timed to coincide with this news-hungry period in the hopes that reporters will pick up on the injuries - bad, Brantley - good angle. Unfortunately, this could be a case of too little too late for Brantley who despite his hard work simply isn't getting results.

And as J.P. has already pointed out, results are how you measure performance.

Edit: Props to Tao Of Stieb for saying pretty much the same thing, only more succinctly and hours earlier.