Just one stumble on Ryan's long road back

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It happened. Finally. The Blue Jays' B.J. Ryan blew a save.But with the New York Yankees set to run out Joba Chamberlain against Toronto in his first major-league start Tuesday night, and with the Blue Jays' 20-10 record in May good enough for the team to gain all of one game in the standings, it seems like a good time for some perspective about Ryan.I mean, c'mon: 12-for-12 in saves until blowing the ninth inning on Sunday, just a little more than a year after undergoing Tommy John tendon-transplant surgery last May 10?Think about that for a second: It's one thing to work a starting pitcher back into a five-day routine after ligament-replacement surgery, but try doing it with a closer and have him save games for you in the process. Try doing it seamlessly."Toughest thing I've had to do as a manager," John Gibbons said last week. "What made it tough was picking spots for him when we were on the road, because you didn't want to get him up, get him warm and not get him in. So we used him in the eighth inning a couple of times on the road. It worked, because we were in the middle of the other team's lineup, anyhow."There's another reason perspective is timely this morning - Ryan could have been the Yankees' setup man, and who knows what that would have meant to the Bronx Bombers.When the Blue Jays signed Ryan to a five-year, $47-million free-agent contract before the 2006 season, it wasn't that they blew the Yankees out of the water as much as it was they offered him the opportunity to close. That's some bridge to Mariano Rivera.The Blue Jays' starting rotation gets most of the laurels for the fact the team hasn't completely disappeared from the postseason picture after an 11-17 April. But how about the bullpen? On Saturday, Brian Tallet and Jason Frasor couldn't get the job done in the 10th inning, and the Blue Jays suffered the first of back-to-back walk-off losses, in the process ending a 22-inning run-less streak.It's been a group effort, to be sure, but Tallet makes it clear that Ryan's return is the base of all the good that has happened - and he's talking about more than Ryan's trademark slider or a fastball that has hit 92 miles an hour at times, suggesting Ryan will be able to maintain pre-surgery levels of velocity."You tend to have a lot of fun out there in bullpen, but when it gets to the point of the game where it gets into our situation, there's a switch B.J. flicks that says, 'Time to get serious,'" Tallet said.Pitching coach Brad Arnsberg says Ryan "gives the bullpen its ego.'' He believes that Ryan emerged from the injury with a slightly different outlook and a different body."He's heavier than 2006, but it's muscle instead of loose skin," Arnsberg said. "I think it was one of those things where he just said, 'I'm not going to finish my career like this.'"Publicly, Ryan still exudes a kind of wary cynicism about all things not related to his job, teammates or family. But at times, his voice betrays the excitement and satisfaction he has gained from his comeback.Ryan gave up three hits in Sunday's 4-3 loss to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, after allowing one earned run and holding opposing hitters to a .183 average in his 17 previous games, and if there was any repetition of the soreness in the flexor region he experienced in spring training, it's been kept out of the public light.Bullpen coach Bruce Walton says the economy of Ryan's routine has had a lot to do with what has so far been a seamless transition back to an everyday closer. Walton says it still takes Ryan 20 to 25 pitches to get warm. Some relievers can take 40."It's pretty much his own routine and even the intensity is what you would call self-regulated," Walton said. "B.J. doesn't go out there and blow it out. He's more of a touch-and-feel guy for the first 15 to 20 pitches. He'll step on it at the end, but only when he knows he's going into the game, and usually only for the last five pitches, tops." Somewhat candidly, Gibbons says having Ryan available means "it's almost like you've just eliminated the ninth inning."There is, he said, no trepidation about health. Walton and Arnsberg both agree."It gets quiet when he goes into the game, but that's because it's your closer going into the game," Arnsberg said. "It means stuff's serious."(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)