When Gregg Zaun beats you, you know life is not going well, Jays lose to Rays

Blue Jays 2 Rays 5

Really the game was lost in the first few innings. In the first we had runners on the corners with 1 out and Lyle Overbay and Vernon Wells struck out. In the 3rd, bases loaded, none out and Adam Lind hit a soft fly to center. B.J. Upton's throw home was offline but Joe Inglett on 3rd couldn't see that from where he was and put on the brakes. Overbay struck out  and Wells ground out. In the 4th, runners on 1st and 2nd, Rod Barajas flied out, Inglett struck out and Marco Scutaro ground out.

In the 5th with runners on 1st and 2nd, Lyle struck out again, but Vernon singled and drove home a run. The line 'even a stopped clock is right twice a day' springs to mind. Aaron Hill scored, crashing into catcher Dioner Navarro. Navarro didn't move, but he also didn't drop the tag on Hill before Hill reached past to touch the base. After that Randy Ruiz struck out and Edwin Encarnacion flied out. 

We had 9 singles until Scutaro hit a solo homer in the 9th. It is tough to score when you can't hit any extra base hits, but today was particularly annoying. We had a little streak of hitting a lot of homers but yesterday and today, we really didn't hit anything hard, other than Scoot's homer. Scoot had a good day going 3 for 5 and Aaron Hill was 2 for 4 with a walk. Everyone else had one hit except Lyle (0 for 4) and Barajas (0 for 4). Rod is hitting a big .238 now, his line for August is .147/.171/.235. His July wasn't any better. What say we put Chavez in as the everyday catcher. His version of can't hit at all is better than Rod's and he plays better defense. I know Rod is a streak hitter but it's been in a slump since the end of May. We really don't have the bats in the other spots to totally give up offense from our catcher. 

Marc Rzepczynski (or Scrabble as he will be know around here, for his 40 point name, Torgen's suggestion, I thought Zeppo for the Marx brother that no one remembers) pitched a very good 6 innings, giving up 6 hits, 3 walks, only 1 run and 1 strikeout. He deserved the win. A few more strikeouts would be good, I don't think you can make it as a starter in the MLB with just 1 K in 6 innings but it worked for him today. Jesse Carlson pitched a perfect inning. But Brandon League did not impress. He loaded the bases then got to a full count with Gregg Zaun before Zaun hit one out. Zaun might not be great but when he knows there is a fastball over the plate coming he can hit it. League hasn't looked good since his 3 innings against the Yankees Wednesday. Maybe he could have a couple of days off?

Jays of the Day are Scrabble (.229 WPA) and Hill (.106). Carlson deserves an honorable mention. Suckage Jays are League (-.376), Overbay (-.250) and Barajas (-.140). Joe Inglett should get an honorable Suckage mention for a careless error in right. He really doesn't look good out there. I really can't wait for them to call Travis Snider up. Any chance that they release Millar to make room for him? Yeah I didn't think so either. Encarncion made an error at third when a ground ball went right through him but he made a couple of nice plays too. 

The Jays have tomorrow off, then three games against the Red Sox in Toronto. The Jays said today that Brett Cecil will make the start Thursday. Glad to see he isn't going to miss anymore time. Scott Downs, on the other hand, is going to need a bit more time.