The Whole Sad Story
The Jays dropped another to Cleveland yesterday, 6-5, to get swept. I'm not even going to link to the recap, cause let's face it, who cares?
Dustin McGowan was lousy, going 5 and giving up 5. He surrendered 5 walks (1 intentional) and 6 hits, striking out 4. It was only one start, and he deserves another shot, and, of course, Cleveland, one of the AL's most patient lineups (and lefty heavy) is a bad matchup for him, but still, he was not particularly encouraging. Well-stocked with an early 4-0 lead, and what does he do? Promptly walk the 7 and 8 batters to lead off the inning on 9 pitches. Ugh.
The Jays again got off to a good start offensively, but let Indians pitchers off the hook several times. The middle of the order was solid and managed to go to the 8th 5-5 thanks to good pitching out of the pen by Shaun Marcum, who had the slider working.
Jason Frasor got the first two outs in the 8th, but then gave up 3 straight hits and the lead. Game.
Waxing/Waning Gibbons:
In my opinion, Gibbons' bullpen management was quite poor. He put in Frasor to go through the righty bottom of the Indians order so that Downs could be saved for the lefty half, but then he let Sizemore hit against Frasor with 2 on and 2 out. I would've gone with Downs, who has been better than Frasor anyway, is excellent against lefties, and Sizemore hits lefties not nearly as well. That turned out to be the winning run. Of course, hindsight is 20-20, but trust me, I started typing this as soon as Grady came to bat.
Well, thank God this series is over. I don't think I can stand the lousy pitching, bad fielding, and don't even get me started on the Cleveland announcers.
Jays of the Day
Marcum and Glaus . Honorable mention to Overbay who looked much better than he has of late, and against a lefty, to boot.