4 Homers and 9 Walks Help Jays Beat White Sox

Blue Jays 11 White Sox 9

Normally, if you score 4 runs in the first and score in each of the first 4 innings, you should win easily, but that one was way too close.

Our offense did its job. We had 10 hits, 4 home runs, 4 doubles and 9 walks, which added up to 11 runs. We scored 4 in the 1st, off homers by Colby Rasmus and Edwin Encarnacion. Kelly Johnson hit one out in the 3rd and Jeff Mathis took his turn in the 5th. Everyone had at least 1 hit except Rajai Davis, who walked twice, stole 3 and scored twice, so we will forgive. The three at the top of the order, Davis, Rasmus and Jose Bautista, had 3 hits, 6 runs, 4 RBI and 6 walks between them. It was a great day for the offense.

Pitching? Not so good. Brett Cecil was terrible, he gave up 6 hits, 7 runs (6 earned), 3 walks, 1 home run, with 5 strikeouts in just 4.1. He better watch, Shawn Hill did a good job in Vegas yesterday, he could end up with Cecil's spot in the rotation.

Jesse Chavez relieved Brett with 1 out in the 5th and a runner on 3rd, and he gave up a triples to score the runner, but got 2 strikeouts to get out of the inning.

Luis Perez gave up 4 hits and 2 earned runs, in his inning plus, before leaving the game with 'elbow tightness' (please don't let it be a serious injury). Jason Frasor took over for Perez with 2 on and none out, but made it out of the inning allowing 1 runner to score on a sac fly, even with a balk called against him (just to make just that we got to see everything possible in baseball in this one game).

Darren Oliver started the 8th. A single and a strikeout later, he was out and Casey Janssen came in to get the 5 out save. Casey got out of the 8th with no trouble, but gave up a couple of singles, in the 9th, to keep us interested, before getting his 12th save.

Our pitchers struck out 14 White Sox. Jason Frasor was awarded the win. In games where the starter doesn't go 5 innings and the team leads when he leaves the game, and doesn't give up that lead, the Official scorer gets to pick someone to be the winning pitcher. Frasor is as good a choice as any.

Jays of the Day are Colby (.267 WPA), Casey (.176), Jason (.154), Rajai (.128) and Kelly (.126). Honorable mention goes to Edwin. Suckage awards for Cecil (-.309) and Perez (-.176).

So we go into the break 43-43. Considering everything that has happened, that's about the best we could hope to do. Hopefully things will go better in the second half.