Oakland-Toronto series preview

Tuesday May 27, 2008. Oakland v Toronto series preview.

Jays head west for very important road trip. Oakland, Angels and the back east to end trip in New York. Nine tough games that the Jays will be happy with 5-4 split but this could go south in a hurry. Jays are three games over .500 for first time this season.

The Oakland series is a revenge matchup. Toronto were swept in Toronto, Accardo and League, (remember them ?) taking the losses. This time around though Jays are on a roll and with much better pitching.
Oakland remains a tough team, young and inconsistent but have just swept Boston. Their pitching is leading the majors with a 3.27 ERA just ahead of the Jays.
Jays will miss Justin Duscherer who had a one hitter against Boston on Sunday.

However will still face Gregg Smith 2-4 with an ERA of 3.18.Rich Harden 3-0 ERA 2.93 and Dana Eveland 4-3 with an ERA of 2.90 in the closer.Jays will send Burnett, Halladay and Litsch.
Devine and Street are tough out of the bullpen. The lineup of course has the big Hurt as cleanup and it will be interesting to see how he does against his former team who gave up on him. Thomas has hit four home runs in five games. I think there might be some incentive here for big Frank to show the Jays that they made a mistake letting him go. However Jays could always walk him every at bat and clog up the basepaths !!
Oakland has homered in their last eight games.

Although the Royals were lesser competition than teams on this road trip it should be remembered that the Jays had never swept Kansas four games in their franchise history not even the great teams of the World Series years and they did it without Wells.
Eckstein will be activated after missing nineteen games on disabled list today in Oakland although Scutaro has been huge in replacing him including his home run yesterday. I think it would have been better to play Scutaro against his old club especially as he went 2-3 yesterday with that home run. Then activate Eckstein against the Angels. Gibbons said that because of the nature of his injury, though, Eckstein will come back gradually and Scutaro will relieve him on the other days.

Other good news: Rios is picking it up with his bat and glove throwing out runner at home plate for second time in three games and also picked up his 11th stolen base yesterday. It is the most stolen bases by a Jay since Mondesi stole in 2001.
Stewart is hitting .359 (14-39) in an eleven game hit streak. It will be interesting to see if he continues with Eckstein taking his leadoff spot.

Bottom line the Jays want to show all three of these teams that they are for real and if they do well, then they will certainly get some believers. Joe Maddon had it right when he said in Spring training he wanted the Rays to get off to a good start and carry that confidence into the season. He was dead right with the Rays now leading the majors and with a confidence and swagger that only Boston and Yankees can match. The Jays have to show on this road trip that their streak is not a mirage.

What they are saying: Marcum on the road trip: “It’s huge. It seems like we never play good when we go to Oakland, so we’ve got to take it one game at a time and hopefully A.J. (Burnett) can keep the ball rolling for us (Tuesday).
"Anaheim is one of the better teams in baseball, and they just came in here and took two of three from us. We have to take one game at a time and not try to look ahead to the Yankees. We know this is a big road trip for us. We need to come back with a winning record."
Manager John Gibbons on Scutaro: "We'll play him somehow. He's been playing great, that's why we got him. He's better than that (a utility player). He's an everyday guy."
Halladay on Scutaro: "Coming in and having three shortstops (counting the disabled Eckstein and McDonald you wondered how it was going to work. But Marco (Scutaro) has been a savior for us."