If there were a game where Aaron Sanchez was to make a declarative statement to be in the Jays rotation, Sunday was it. After giving up a lead-off double in the first inning, Sanchez settled in, retiring 11 consecutive before allowing a four-pitch walk. He demonstrated an effective command of his fastball while mixing in a tighter slider in addition to a much deeper breaking curveball that had many, including myself, wowing at the offering. In four innings, Sanchez retired 12 of the 14 batters he faced, seven via the ground ball, with four strikeouts.
Gavin Floyd followed Sanchez and after giving up two doubles in the fifth inning, allowing a run, settled in to strike out five batters over three innings. If Sanchez's outing took the lead in the race for the fifth spot in the rotation, it wasn't by much with an equally impressive outing by Floyd.
Steve Delabar and Arnold Leon picked up the final two innings of relief for the Jays and kept the Rays' hitters at bay. Neither allowed a run with Delabar picking up a strikeout in his outing in the 8th inning.
Offensively, most of the starting lineup was in play for Sunday's action with the exception of Troy Tulowitzki at shortstop. In his place was Ryan Goins with Andy Burns taking over at second. As has been the story this spring, it was Burns who kick-started the Jays offence in the third inning with a single, later scoring on a pass-ball with Jose Bautista at the plate. Bautista later cleared the bags for his first home run (and first hit) of spring training, taking an inside fastball over the left-field fence for a 4-0 lead.
Kevin Pillar--1-2, .190. His hit was on a first pitch fastball so it would be interesting to see how pitchers attack him if he is the lead-off hitter when the season begins.
Josh Donaldson--0/1, .429
Jose Bautista--1/3, HR, 3 RBI, .125
Troy Tulowitzki--0/2, .267
Russell Martin--0/3, .214 on the spring and has looked it thus far.
Justin Smoak--0/3,.316
Michael Saunders--0/2, .318
Andy Burns--1/2,.375
Ryan Goins--1/2, .368
Junior Lake came in as a replacement and had a double in two at-bats to bring in another run.
Matt Dominguez also had a pinch-hit at-bat where he singled home the Jays sixth run.