Friday May 9,2008. Cleveland v Toronto series.
Two new bats in lineup tonight.Mench and Wilkerson. I think can only help this side through their batting slump. Both of them experienced Riccardi obviously believes Lind and Buck Coats are not ready yet.
Lineups: Toronto: Rios, Hill, Rolen, Wells, Mench, Overbay, Barajas,Wilkerson, Scutaro and Halladay pitching.
Cleveland: Sizemore, Guttierez, Dellucci, Martinez, Peralta, Hafner, Garko, Cabrera, Blake and Sabathia pitching.
The good: Barajas hit in 4th off the wall. Scutaro’s rbi. Mench walk and steal first at bat. Carlson again. Halladay for six innings.
Not good: Wells wrist injury in the 4th. Maybe somewhat offset with Mench and Wilkerson additions but Vernon was just getting going in the last few games. Alex is going to have to fill this power void. News on Vernon is that he has jammed wrist not broken but also tight right hamstring.
The bad: Halladay pitching to Cabrera when he was trying to bunt and walks him? Perhaps also time to end this pattern of Halladay trying to pitch complete games every time out.
Very bad: NINE Jays left on base.
The very good: We didn’t have to pay to see this one.
Top 1st: Rios strikes out, Gibbons has to move Alex down order. Hill hit in back. Rolen at bat, fly ball to shallow CF. two down. Wells decked trying to avoid inside pitch, strikes out. Hill left at 1B.
Bottom 1st: Halladay pitching. Sizemore grounds to Hill at 2B, one down. Guttierez , fly ball to Rios in shallow RF. Dellucci strikes out. Good efficient first inning from Halladay.
Top 2nd: Mench first at bat for Toronto, walks on four pitches. Overbay last night two doubles to CF, is this the breakout we have been waiting for ? strikes out on high ball four. Barajas strikes out on low breaking pitch. Wilkerson at bat, Mench steals 2B. Making an impact eh! Wilkerson strikes out. That would have been neat to see these two score in first at bats. Ah well this is reality Jays not Hollywood Disney.
Bottom 2nd: Martinez, chops it to Overbay at 1B one down. Peralta, strikes out. Hafner, walks him. Garko, strikes out. Three strikeouts for Halladay.
Top 3rd: Scutaro first pitch lines out ball t CF. Rios second pitch !!! fly ball to RF. I am SO tired of Alex and his total lack of brainpower at bat. He seems to have no sense of where the game is. Hill pops up to 1B on three pitches. All Sabathia had to do was throw three strikes. Hill had no choice but to take first two and then hit the third.. Six pitch inning…
Bottom 3rd: Halladay hardly had time to sit down. Cabrera strikes out right on the corner, great curve. Blake, strikes out great pitch Roy. Sizemore fly ball to shall ow RF Hill back pedaling great leaping catch to end the inning. Five strikeouts for Halladay so far. Now can we have some thought from the bats at each at bat please ?
Top 4th: Rolen leadoff fouling a few off here, more pitches than the whole of last inning. And then a single up the middle. That was a great at bat. Alex watch this guy you can learn something. Vernon singles to RF. Rolen has to hold at 2B he held up a little in case it was caught. Kevin Mench at bat. Can do something here and make JP look brilliant. Ouch… chops it to SS double play !! but Rolen to 3B. Overbay horrible first pitch half hearted swing fly ball to RF. Lyle that was not what we needed there and definitely not first pitch. Yet another left out there on 3B.
Bottom 4th: Guttierez grounds out to Rolen. Dellucci grounds to Scutaro. Martinez singles to LF. First hit off Halladay. Peralta at bat, strikes him out. Number six for Halladay.
Top 5th: Barajas, double high off the wall in LF just missed HR. (has 5-14 and 3HR off Sabathia). Wilkerson, sac bunt Barajas to 3B. Scutaro singles to CF brings in Barajas. 1-0 Jays. Very nice hit. Now Rios 0-2 tonight. High fly ball to CF. he got hold of it but deep part of field. Hill doubles to LF corner. Pevey waving Scutaro home but Scutaro holds and rightly so. Throw would have had him. Two on at 2B and 3B for Rolen 72 pitches for Sabathia now and that includes that six pitch inning. Rolen grounds to SS. Pevey at 3B has been in some interesting plays this season at 3B and a couple of horrible calls in Spring training, I think a “work in progress” for Marty P. but if players are going to double guess him … that could cause big problems.
Bottom 5th: Nice curve to start but Hafner doubles next pitch to LF corner. Garko broken bat roller to Scutaro. Hafner holds. Garko out at 1B. Cabrera strikes out. Number seven for Halladay. Blake full count, 75 pitches. Gets him on the corner, number eight.
Top 6th: Wells grounds to 3B. Mench strikes out very low pitch. Overbay.
Bottom 6th: Sizemore single up the middle just beats Scutaro’s dive. Guttierez bunting away first two pitches now takes it off, fly ball into shallow centre, makes great catch but is hurt in play His glove hand bends underneath him. Leaves game. Rios now in CF, Stewart in LF and Wilkerson in RF. Dellucci wild pitch bounced away from Barajas’ body. Sizemore to 2B. Full count now, strikes him OUT!. Martinez with first base open, putting him on. Peralta at bat rolls one to Rolen.
Top 7th: Barajas first pitch liner out to RF. Wilkerson singles into LF under diving SS. Scutaro at bat 3-0 walks him. Two on now. NOW Alex 0-3 tonight…. Your time is nigh…. You are the man. Another strike out. His head was looking at stars. Hill strikes out. This is why Sabathia is Cy Young. BUT another disappointment for Jays hitters.
Bottom 7th: Halladay still in there. Hafner first pitch single to CF. Garko, single to LF. Cabrera at bat. Jamey Carroll pinch runner for Garko. Cabrera looking for bunt but now 3-0, walks him bases loaded. 109 pitches. Blake high off LF wall, two runs score. 2-1 Indians. That’s it for Halladay.
Carlson in with two on and no outs. Cabrera and Blake also in scoring position. Sizemore pops up bit in crowd at 3B. another pop up this time to Scutaro at SS. One down. Intentional walk Guttierez, Francisco pinch hitting for Dellucci, Gibbons bringing in Accardo. One down bases loaded. Francisco off the wall in LF, two more runs 4-1 Cleveland. Still runners on 2B and 3B one out. Wild pitch, run scores. 5-1. 3-0 to Martinez, now put him on intentionally, why didn’t they do it four pitches ago would have saved a run… Peralta fly ball to Rios in CF. Runner tags and scores 6-1. Two down. Hafner strikes out. BUT awful, awful inning.
Top 8th: Sabathia gone, Jensen Lewis pitching. The problem is that Jays have the bats to score six also, but you know they will not. Rolen gets it going with single to CF. Stewart in for injured Wells. Grounds to 2B. Moves Rolen to 2B. Stairs now pinch hitting for Mench grounds to 1B. Rolen to 3B. Two down. Overbay walks. Barajas with two on, what can he do? Fly ball to RF. What a surprise…
Bottom 8th: Tallet pitching. Carroll strikes him out. Cabrera grounds to SS. Blake ground ball past Overbay off his glove. Sizemore single up the middle. Two on. Guttierez fly ball to Stewart in LF.
Top 9th: Jays fans can’t wait to see this one over and this is the problem no one expects any comebacks with this team. Score six in one inning ??? not this team. Remember last season in Rogers Centre six runs in bottom of 9th to WIN a game? They believed in themselves to do it. Not this team.
Masa Kobayashi pitching. Wilkerson at bat wishing he had never come to Jays after tonight’s horrible performance by his new team. Fly ball to RF. One down. Scutaro grounds to 2B. Guess who? lead off man Alex Rios. What can he do? No Alex the crowd is not on their feet and cheering for you. They are cheering Kobayashi. Strikes out. Finishes off the way he started in first inning. His third strikeout of game. Back to batting practice Alex.
Cleveland takes it to the Jays 6-1. All runs scored in one inning. Halladay loses but should take some blame.
Is this the worst Jays team ever? Probably not, but they are certainly pathetic right now with bats. And are back deep in the hole they had climbed out of last week.
There will be more calls for Gibbons to be sacrificial lamb for this team. They have tried everything else.
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