No "I" in team

A pitcher in the major leagues has a responsibility to his team...to get as many outs as he can. Yet, without a strong bullpen and run support from his teammates, he is not going to win any games.

Now try to think of your lawn-care provider as that pitcher, Mother Nature is out in the bullpen and the homeowner is the run support.

Let's take a look at Mother Nature's stats this year shall we...second hottest summer on record, driest season in 75 years, 50+ days with humidity over 30 Celsius with several pushing 40 degrees, (awesome for sun worshipers, not so much for lawn care). She's been tossing everything at us from crabgrass, to chinch bug, to sod web-worm and hasn't allowed us to go deep into the game since May. We've had little in our arsenal to answer the onslaught.

We just have to trust in our pitching mechanics and hope we have enough run support to win the close contests going down the stretch.

Some, like the lawn pictured above, are the Josh Donaldson's of our team, with a sprinkler system and cutting the lawn at 3 inches high the grass has not suffered much. With them in our dugout there was little to no damage from the invasion of weeds and insects this year.

Yet, along with the Bautista's, Tulowitzki's, Martin's and Encarnacion's in the field there were those, lower in the batting-order, who refused to water and still felt scalping their lawn while catching knuckle balls day-in-day-out was a sure-fire road to post-season success, (my apologies to Josh Thole).

Now those same homeowners have found, as September rolls around, they are too many games behind their neighbors to make a run at the Pennant.

I'm sure most lawn care providers strive to be the ace of the pitching staff (although some appear to be here to collect the big contract). However, with the team we've had this year it doesn't matter how well we pitched, we might end up being just another hack who can't win games.

Go Jays Go!