Blue Jays 7 A's 0
A few days ago we had a rather useless argument about whether Ricky Romero was an ace or not. Well, he certainly looked like an ace tonight. Ricky has now won his last 5 starts. He has allowed 0, 1, 2, 1, and 0 runs in those starts. Tonight he did have some troubles in the 2nd and 3rd innings. He gave up a walk and a single to start the 2nd and he loaded the bases in the 3rd but he kept the A's off the board. In total: 3 hits, 2 walks and 6 strikeouts. He didn't allow a baserunner after a lead off single in the 5th inning.
We got a fair bit of offense too. Colby Rasmus was 3 for 4 with a double and a two run homer that hit off the facing of the second deck in RF. Brett Lawrie was 2 for 3 with a walk. He had a nice hit and run single with Colby on first. Every other starter had 1 hit except Yunel Escobar who was 0 for 5 with 3 strikeouts. As great as he's been, he can have the odd poor game. J.P. Arencibia drove in 2 with a single, Lawrie and Edwin Encarnacion had an RBI each.
Jays of the Day are Romero (.224 WPA), Rasmus (.165) and Lawrie (.129). No Suckage Jays, Yunel had the low mark at -.043.
We had some nice defense too. Yunel made a great diving catch on a line drive, which made up for an earlier error, on what would have been a tough play on a ground ball to his right. Adam Lind had a nice running catch on a popup that was a long way away from his position. In any other ball park it would have been in the seats but there is a massive amount of foul ground at the Oakland stadium. Lawrie had a nice play on a ball way to his left, and then making a throw to Hill for the force from his seat. He has a lot of range.
Tomorrow night Brett Cecil (4-5, 4.38), who is on a nice little roll of his own, with 9 starts in a row of at least 6 innings of work, gets the start. Victoria BC's Rich Harden (3-2, 4.50) starts for the A's.
We had another fun game thread tonight, thanks to all who joined in.