Blue Jays 1 White Sox 2

Our offense is really is really limping to the finish line. It doesn't help that we have Yunel and Edwin hurt, but we just aren't scoring runs.

We did get 8 hits today and Mike McCoy hit a home run. Really, if McCoy hits a home run you really ought to win the game. The two Joses had two hits each. 0 fors tonight go to Colby Rasmus and Eric Thames. To give an idea to how poor Colby has been hitting, Farrell had Chris Woodward pinch hit for Rasmus in the top of the 9th. 

Henderson Alvarez had another good start. 7 innings, 7 hits, 2 earned, no walks and 6 strikeouts. But he gave up a  home run to Tyler Flowers and an RBI single to A.J. Pierzynski. Since we've been offensively challenged the past couple of week, that was enough for the loss. 

I'm going to give a JoD to McCoy for the homer and Alvarez for the 7 innings of good work.

Tomorrow the season comes to a finish with Brandon Morrow (11-11, 4.78) getting the start. Brandon has had 2 excellent starts in a row, so I'm hoping he can have one more to go into the off-season with good feelings. Philip Humber (9-9, 3.86) starts for the White Sox. It is a 2:00 Eastern start. 

Both the Rays and the Red Sox won today, so they go into the last day of the season tied for the Wild Card. The Rays, amazingly, got a triple play in the 6th inning. A huge moment in the game. the Yankees were already up 3-2 and had a good chance to blow the game wide open but Russell Martin hit a triple play with the base loaded. He might have been safe if he didn't dive for the bag at first base. The play was costly because the Rays got a 3 run homer from Matt Joyce in the bottom of the inning. It makes for an exciting last day of the season and leaves the strong possibility of a 1 game playoff between the Rays and Sox. 

Blue Jays 3 White Sox 4

It was a pretty short and not great start for Dustin McGowan. 4 innings, 4 hits, 3 walks, 3 earned, 3 strikeouts. All the runs against came off of one hit, a three run homer for Tyler Flowers. Not great for his last start of the season but then results aren't as important as just the fact that he can pitch again. Now he can go and have a normal off-season and come back in the spring ready to compete for a spot in the rotation.

Carlos Villanueva pitched 2 good innings of relief. Kyle Drabek gave up a couple of hits and a walk and a run in his inning. Chad Beck pitched a perfect 8th. I'm starting to think that Beck could have a spot in next year's bullpen.

Our offense didn't do much until the 8th when Mike McCoy and Jose Bautista each walked and then pulled off a double steal, Adam Lind drove in McCoy with a ground out and Kelly Johnson struck out to end the threat. 

Then in the 9th David Cooper drove in 2 with a double. Eric Thames and Bautista loaded the bases to give Adam Lind a chance to be here but, in an at bat that sums up his season, Adam struck out. 

We only managed 5 hits, to go with 7 walks. Mark Teahen had 2 of the hits. Bautista walked 3 times. Adam Loewen and Cooper had our only extra base hit, with a double each. 

Jays of the Day are Teahen  (.179 WPA) and Bausta (.112). Suckage numbers go to Lind (-.359), Rasmus (-.209) and McGowan (-.132). 

The real news of the day is that Ozzie Guillen was let go by the White Sox. I wonder where he will land? You think Jack McKeon's retirement announcement is a clue?

And the other big news is that, today,  the Red Sox lost  and the Rays won, putting them in a tie for the Wild Card spot with 2 games each to go. If you happen to be in Boston, don't stand under a bridge. 

Tomorrow, in the penultimate game of the season, Henderson Alvarez (1-2, 3.65) goes against the Ozzieless White Sox and Mark Buehrle (12-9, 3.72).

Recap was put together by Minor Leaguer. A big thanks for helping me out when I couldn't get to a computer.

Rays 5 Blue Jays 2.

Brett Cecil (4-11) finishes a bad season with a bad outing against the surging Tampa Bay Rays, allowing a line of 5 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 3 HR, 1 K, 2 BB in 3.1 IP. This game was boring but at least it wasn't as horrible as yesterday's game.

Things were bad from the get-go with Cecil allowing a solo shot to B. J. Upton on his 8th pitch of the game. An out later, Ben Zobrist hit a hard fly ball to the right field wall. Jose Bautista was tracking the ball and ran hard into the a padded metal pole on the wall.He went down hard and by the time Dewayne Wise came over to get the ball, Zobrist was rounding third and got an inside-the-park homer. Bautista got back up and played several more innings but Mark Teahen was sent to pinch hit for him in the top of the 6th.

Cecil gave up a two-run homer to Evan Longoria in the bottom of the third, and after allowing a Kelly Shoppach single with one out in the 4th, Jesse Litsch was sent into relieve Cecil. Litsch gave up 2 hits and no walks with 4 strike outs in his 2.1 innings of relief, but one of the hits was a Kelly Shoppach home run.Shawn Camp, Luis Perez, and Danny Farquhar then combined for a one-hit shutout and four strikeouts for the rest of the way, but the damage was already done.

On the other side, Wade Davis limited the feeble Jays lineup to 3 hits and 2 runs in 8 innings, giving up 2 walks while striking out 6. Dewayne Wise, who was put into the lineup last minute due to Colby Rasmus' "flu-like symptoms" (he looked fine to me when the camera picked him up in the dugout), had a solo job. David Cooper's RBI double in the 2nd was responsible for the Jays' other run.

It is sad to see the Jays being so short handed in September, with Lind, Rasmus, Escobar, and Bautista unavailable. Reports at the beginning of the game say that Escobar is probably done for the balance of the season, but Lind should be able to join the team in Chicago. The best Jays-related news to come out today was the birth of Lind's little girl. Congrats!

Brian Jeroloman was seen chatting with Bautista and the supposedly contagious Rasmus in the dugout but saw no action.

Jays of the Day: none. But David Cooper (+.090) was close with his RBI-double.

Suckage Jays: Brett Cecil (-.295).

For the Blue Jays "fans" who were rooting against the Jays this series, you would be happy to know that with the Rays' win and Red Sox's game 1 loss, the Rays are now just 0.5 games back of a wild card berth.

The Jays (and Mike McCoy) take their last flight of the season to Chicago to meet the White Sox for the last series of the season. Tomorrow we will see RHP Dustin McGowan (0-1, 6.35 ERA) face RHP Dylan Axelrod (0-0, 4.26 ERA) at 8:10 pm EST. RHP Henderson Alvarez (1-2, 3.65 ERA) will pitch against LHP Mark Buehrle (12-9, 3.72 ERA) at the same time on Tuesday. RHP Brandon Morrow (11-11, 4.78 ERA) will pitch the last game of the season opposite to RHP Philip Humber (9-9, 3.86 ERA) in an afternoon affair starting 2:10 pm EST.

That was awful. I think it was worse since it started out so well. After scoring a couple of early runs and knocking Niemann out of the game after only one inning the Jays decided it was sporting to hand the game back to the Rays on a silver platter.

Ricky Romero was great and really deserved better. Had the defense not screwed up in the first he could have been looking at a 7 or 8 pitch inning in the first but instead it ended up being in the mid-20s. No matter though as Ricky continued to cruise through to the rest of the game. He gave up a HR to give the Rays a 3-2 lead but still looked great. He had two great pick offs of Upton however only one of them caused an out as Cooper took his sweet time on the second. In the 8th after Upton reached, the Jays had another error by McCoy. John Farrell came out to talk to Ricky but left him in the game, he got a quick out on one pitch but the next batter was Damon and he took him yard for a 3run HR that put a final nail in the game.

At the plate the Jays looked great in the first but not so much after that. The Rays bullpen came into the game after Niemann was pulled and things went south quickly. Bautista absolutely crushed one for his 43rd of the season and that was about it. The Jays did look to start something in the 3rd but Johnson was thrown out trying to steal second. Later Arencbia was caught trying to stretch a single into a double. 

In the field the Jays made three official errors but there was a dropped ball in the outfield that was absolutely awful with one of those I got it you got it, drop. Rasmus and Johnson didn't communicate it and the ball dropped, because no one touched it no error. Stupid. Cooper was awful and dropped a pop out in foul that was about 10 ft to his left and then right after that missed a bouncer from McCoy. The error gets put on McCoy because of the throw but it is a throw that a first basemen should be able to have. McCoy did make a few great plays but honestly it was all overshadowed by the Jays poor defense on the night.

Jays of the Day: Bautista

Suckage: Romero has the number but Im not giving it to him. McCoy, Cooper, Rasmus and Johnson, congratulations.

The Rays playoff chances got a little slimmer tonight as the Jays rolled into Tampa Bay and came close to blanking the home side. Brandon Morrow threw great for 7 innings and the Jays got to Price for 5 runs which is more then they needed. With the rain out in New York and the loss tonight, Tampa Bay falls to 2.5 back of the Red Sox for the wild card with only 5 games left to play. I'm not a big fan of the Rays at all, especially since they started to get successful, you can only hear "See do it like the Rays" so many times before you develop a tick and start yelling at people when they say stuff like that.

As mentioned above Brandon Morrow was great tonight, he threw 7 strong innings with only 2Hs and 4BBs he struck out 9, he ran into a little trouble in the 7th but was able to get out of it without too much concern. The bigger news tonight was that he got his first double play since 2010. According to our very own statsman MinorLeaguer this was a streak of 174 straight innings(0.1 IP from Aug 28 right after his GIDP, 3.0 from Sep 3, 166.1 this year, 4.1 this game before his GIDP = 174), quite impressive. <<Side note: Elias is saying 173.1IP>>  I would have loved to see him get the record as a weird quirk but oh well. Joel Carreno came out for the 8th and allowed BJ Upton to reach but he was thrown out trying to steal second on a great throw from Arencibia from his knees. Luis Perez came in for the ninth and did his best Kevin Gregg impression by walking Johnny Damon to lead off the inning, things didn't exactly go smoothly as the Rays were able to push a single run across but that was all.

At the plate the Jays got a bit of help from two throwing errors by David Price, one of which allowed two runs to score. Kelly Johnson had a strong game with an RBI hit and a big time HR to right, he was a good at bat going left on left against Price. McCoy and Thames each had a hit apiece with Bautista and McCoy taking a walk each. J.P Arencibia had a 2-4 night with a squeaker of an infield single in the top of the ninth. The Jays didn't produce a lot at the plate but it was more then enough tonight.

Jays of the Day: Morrow .256 and Thames .214

No suckage although Encarnacion came closest at -0.86 Nevermind

Tomorrow night the Jays look to really put a dagger into the Rays with another 7PM start, see you then!