Ricky Romero was let down by his defense in his final start of the season

The Jays were very lucky to be facing Jeff Niemann tonight as he just did not have it in the first inning as he throw 39 pitches and gave up two hits and two walks but the only problem is that they could not take advantage of it as only Jose Bautista really did anything with his 43Rd homer of the season a two run homer and the Jays left two on and Niemann only pitched the first inning.

Ricky Romero in the first inning David Cooper dropped a foul pop up and was charged an error with two out and one on the defense fell apart starting with Mike McCoy's first of two errors in the game by throwing the ball away to score B.J. Upton on a ground ball by Ben Zobrist and that was followed by Colby Rasmus for the second time in three games he was in position to take control and make an out and the ball dropped on the carpet and was credited as a double to Johnny Damon and the game was tied two-all with two unearned runs. Then in the fourth inning Ben Zobrist lead off with a solo homer which was the only earned run credit to Ricky Romero and with a B.J. Upton walk and stole second on a bad defense because Romero picked him off but was still safe and distracted Mike McCoy a few steps off second and the ground ball eat him up and the next batter Johnny Damon hit a three run homer which were all unearned. So Ricky Romero finished the season with the sixth best ERA in the American League with a 2.92 ERA and has 15 wins in his third season and has 84 double plays since '09 and leads the league in double plays.

The Rays traded Scott Kazmir to the Angels and received Sean Rodriguez and Alexander Torres came in to replace Niemann and pitched five innings and gave up only 3 hits and a walk with 5Ks and pitched up his first ever win and then the rest of the bullpen only gave up a hit over the last three innings and these are the kind of moves that have kept the Rays ahead off the Jays.

So I do not know what the Jays fielding coaches actually do but it does not look like practicing catching fly ball or pop ups and more importantly call off the other Jays to make the play because there are way too many almost collisions and tonight J.P. caught a ball over by the railing and that was not the only thing he had to contend with as he had David Cooper's glove in his face as he made the catch.

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Tom Mehegan