I know I'm too much a fanboy and all but it is great to see Vernon Wells hitting the ball hard again. He might actually get me interested in voting for the All-Star game if he keeps up like this. Tonight 3 for 4, a homer and 2 doubles. That's his 7th home run of the season, tying him with Nelson Cruz for league lead. Add in the 6 doubles and the .364 batting average and maybe we can go a few moments without hearing about his contract.
6 Jays had a hit each. Fred Lewis and Lyle Overbay both had doubles. Lyle took a walk too, he is looking much better at the plate, until facing a lefty. A ground out in the 8th against lefty Dusty Hughes dropped him to 0 for 16 against southpaws this year. With any other manager we could have had a nice debate about pinch hitting for him there with 2 out and Wells, a potential insurance run, at second. Would have been a nice run to have.
Gonazalez, Lind and McCoy were the 0 fors. Lind had a nice sac fly in the first though. In the 'we should have scored more' catagory, with the bases loaded and no one out in the 7th, McCoy struck out and then Lewis tapped a check swing grounder to third for a 5-2-3 double play to end the inning. Thankfully we got the tying and go ahead run before that.
Dana Eveland didn't have the great start that he had his first two times out, but competed hard for 5.1 inning to give us a chance at the win. He gave up 8 hits, 2 walks, 3 runs, 2 earned and struck out 3. It could have been far worse.
Our bullpen was terrific yet again. Shawn Camp pitched 1.2, with a hit and a walk. Jason Frasor pitched a scoreless 8th, though a long loud foul ball got our hearts beating. And Kevin Gregg got his 4th save, surviving a ball that fell between Snider and McCoy. They came within a few feet of a collision that would have had Roger Center workers trying to clean bits of McCoy out of the new turf for days. Fortunately Travis slid just before they would have hit and the ball bounced off Mike's glove. Gregg may yet make a believer out of me.
Jose Bautista made an error, getting caught between hops on a ball to third, that did cost Eveland, but other than that we showed some good defense. We made a couple of nice double plays. McCoy turns them well and Gonzalez is very smooth with the glove.
Jays of the Day are Wells (.252 WPA), Gregg (.167), Overbay (,156), Camp (.136) and Frasor (.123). Suckage Jay is Fred Lewis (-.121). Eveland came close by the numbers (-.094) but the error cost him. McCoy was close too (-.089) but he made some nice plays in the field.
Tomorrow's game is an afternoon one. 12:30 Eastern. We get to try to beat Zack Greinke (0-2, 3.57) to get the sweep. Shaun Marcum (0-1, 4.05) starts for the Jays.
The win makes us 9-6 on the season. Pretty decent considering the number of folks that had us down for 100 loses and last in the East. Still could happen but it is nice to be doing well.
The game thread was great fun today, join in tomorrow if you can.
From Jordan Bastian's Thrip, Vernon on his home run:
I hit that one pretty good.
Yeah he crushed it alright.