White Sox 4 Blue Jays 13
It was very nice to see Aaron Hill, with the grand slam, and Edwin Encarnacion go back-to-back in the first inning. It added up to a 6 run first inning which, with Ricky Romero pitching, pretty much gave us the game. It would be great if those two start hitting them out. Edwin borrowed Ricky Romero's bat to hit that homer. Anything to break a slump.
We scored a bunch more. Corey Patterson was 4 for 5 with a home run. EE had 3 hits. 2 each for Yunel Escobar, Juan Rivera, J.P. Arencibia and Jayson Nix. Every other starter had one hit. Which Nix hitting the hitless streak for our 3Bs has finally ended. We had 18 hits in all. Not a bad day.
Ricky Romero had another good start, going 7, with 6 hits, 2 walks, 2 earned and 5 strikeouts. Getting deep into the game was important after the pen pitched us 9 great innings yesterday. He maybe could have gone one more inning, if it was needed, but up by 11, there was no reason to push him.
Jays of the Day are Hill (.201 WPA) and Patterson (.120). Yeah other guys had great days but after Hill hit that one out we had it won. No suckage numbers, Rivera had the low number at a -.055, mostly off the strikeout in the first inning, with 2 on. Even though he had 2 doubles (one he tried to stretch into a triple), with the big lead he couldn't make up ground.
There was nice defense from our Jays too. Rajai Davis made a really nice catch at the wall. Aaron caught a line drive and doubled off the runner on first. Juan Rivera got a Juan Pierre grounder and made a nice slide into first to beat Pierre to the bag.
A great series win putting the Jays back above .500. At the moment we are 3 back from the Red Sox for first and 1.5 behind the Yankees for the Wild Card. Considering everything that has been going on with the team, that's pretty good.
Next the AL leading Cleveland Indians come to town for three games. Tomorrow Fausto Carmona (3-5, 4.73) goes against Jo-Jo Reyes (0-4, 4.70). Jo-Jo will be trying not to set a new MLB mark for consecutive starts without a win. Let's get him 13 runs.