The Blue Jays finished in second place in yesterday's contest with the Orioles, not exactly reminding fans of the team's glorious past.
On the Mound: Ricky Romero ran into trouble in the 6th inning, giving up 4 runs and spoiling a start that had been solid to that point. Of course the inning started with a walk to Matt Wieters.
At the Plate: Vernon Wells and Alex Rios hit solo home runs in the first inning to stake Romero to a lead. Aaron Hill doubled in Joe Inglett (who has been hitting well recently) in the 5th but the Jays then had another golden opportunity with runners at 2nd and 3rd and 1 out. Adam Lind and Lyle Overbay failed to bring any of them in. Wells and Rios accounted for another 2 runs in the 8th with an RBI single and sacrifice fly, respectively.
From the Pen: Brandon League had problems in the 8th. He got the first batter on a groundout but then gave up a single through the middle. A wild pitch sent that runner to second. League then got three straight ground balls. Unfortunately, two of them went through the infield and the inning unraveled from there. League did bail out the Jays in the 7th by coming in to retire the final out after Jesse Carlson had left two runners on, so it was another situation where he ran into problems after the inning break. He's been very good recently, and other than the double he served up to Matt Wieters, didn't look all that bad yesterday, but it was an ugly result.
Vernon Wells earns Jay of the Day honours. Romero and League take home the Towers and Bautista, and Barajas earns himself a golden Hinske (or should the Jays of the Day awards be made from porcelein with cobalt glaze?)
AAA Watch: Travis Snider was 3-5 with a double. Brian Dopirak and J.P. Arencibia didn't do much, but Casey Janssen pitched another perfect relief inning, striking out 2. He seems rather sharp recently so I wonder how long it'll be before he replaces someone like Accardo, who looked pretty shaky yesterday.