So right after I sent my blog out yesterday word came out that the Jays made a couple of moves to get ready for the Yankees series and those were Chis Woodward and Travis Snider were sent to Las Vegas and Rajai Davis and David Cooper are heading to the big leagues. So Chris Woodward was most likely a stop gab as he was not even put in the starting lineup during the week he was up and instead was a pinch runner while Travis Snider is struggling at the plate with a .184 batting average so far this season and getting eaten up by the inside curve ball and would probably benefit with sometime in Las Vegas to hopefully regain some of swing and confidence along with maybe get some practice on inside curve ball before games maybe. I guess the reason that Cooper is up for his major league debut instead of Eric Thames is because Woodward infielder and the Jays wanted to keep the same numbers at every position and Cooper is first baseman and Eric Thames is a left fielder also Cooper has less strikeouts than Thames (6 compared to 19) and if a hitter has a problem striking out in the minors then it is not likely be turned around big leagues so Thames needs to work on being more patient before he comes up.
So now to the game the starters Rick Romero for the Jays and Freddie Gracia both did not have a 1-2-3 inning in the game as Gracia pitched 5 innings and gave up 3 runs on 7 hits and 5 walks and he had 7 base runners on base in his first 2 6 inning starts with 4 hits and 3 walks and the Jays had equaled this amount by the end of the third inning. The Jays left 8 runners on base and was 0 for 7 with runners in scoring position and had left 9 on over the first 5 innings and the Jays only scoring off Gracia was with the long ball as Bautista hit a 2-run shot with Yanul Escobar's walk on and J.P. hit a solo shot. Rick Romero gave up 2 runs on 5 hits and 3 walks over 6 inning pitched and he protected himself extremely well as a ball off the bat of Mark Teixeira as he got his glove up to protect himself and the ball found his glove as he fell onto his back and his girlfriend like the grab as she was in the crowd
It got really serious in the bottom of the 5 inning with the Jays up 3-2 when Nick Swisher hit the ball to Edwin Encarnacion with 2 on and instead of getting Brett Gardner at third he decided to throw it to Johnny Mac at second but got away from him and it was bases loaded with no outs and Mark Teixeira at the plate but he hit a gapper into the outfield but Yunel Escobar went out and made a back handed grab. Then A-Rod hit into a double play to end the inning without given up a run when the bases were loaded with no outs amazing and then in top 6 with David Robertson coming into the game for Gracia throw 5 straight including a walk to Rajai Davis and then Yunel moves him over with a ground ball and then Rajai steals third with Bautista at the plate who then walked where Robertson steps off the rubber and looks around very quickly and noticed that Bautista was running to second and he throw it and it went into the outfield and Rajai scored to make it 4-2. Juan Rivera grounds the ball throw the infield and Bautista runs all the way home avoiding a Russell Martin tag and got his hand on the plate before Martin could put a tag down and it was 5-2.
In the bottom of the 8 inning the Jays were still up 5-2 but the first batter Shawn Camp faced was Robinson Cano who hit his second home run of the game to make it 5-3 and with one out Curtis Granderson got an infield single and with Octavio Dotel in he walked Russell Martin and Brett Gardner to load the bases with one out but then he strikes out Derek Jeter and Jon Rauch came in and with a fast ball got the Jays out of the 8. Then he stayed in the game to try and get the 4 out save and he used 3 pitches to get Mark Teixeira to fly out to Cory Patterson, then 2 pitches to get A-Rod to ground out to Mike McCoy at third for the second out, and finally 2 pitches to Robinson Cano to have him fly out to Cory Patterson so to get 4 outs he throw only 8 pitches.
The Jays are hitting well right now and the pitching is still pitching incredibly but not getting eaten up by early runs and losing low scoring games which is nice as the Jays are back at 500 for the first time since their horrible first 10 game road trip and are now 4-1 in the first half of this 10 game road trip.
Go Jays Go
Tom Mehegan
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