Jays win another with excellent pitching

Jays v Pitsburgh at Bradenton.

In the line-up today Snider DH getting his at bats, Arencibia, Rajai Davis taking right with Patterson in centre. Thames playing left. Romero pitching. Hill still not in line-up and could be several more games, ample time for young Jonathan Diaz to show the Boss that he has more than enough potential for that spot. Today Mike McCoy gets a shot at second.

Jays get to Pittsburgh pitcher James McDonald early, Patterson double and Escobar single followed by Bautista single in the first inning to score Patterson. Snider walks to load bases with no outs. Thames does the job with sac fly to bring in Escobar. Davis pops up but Jays go out ahead by two.
Romero started by throwing nothing but strikes and with two on and two down, gets out of trouble.
3rd Inning: Bautista double, 2-2. Snider, brings him on Wimberly throwing error and gets to second himself, Thames brings him in and gets his second rbi. 4-0 for the Jays by the 3rd inning.

Jays win this one 5-0 and go 4-5 for the spring.

The good: Bautista 3-3, Thames 2-2 with two rbis, Snider rbi and on base three times albeit the throwing error by Wimberly. Escobar two hit day, Lawrie 2-2.
Pitching: Romero four scoreless innings with six strikeouts bringing his ERA down nicely to 5.68. Rauch walks Fields on 4 pitches, saved by double play and finishes off with strikeout and preserve that 0.00 ERA. Frank Francisco finally gets into game had some initial trouble getting loads the bases with one out, but saved by another double play. Franky just a little rusty. The Boss must be pleased with his infield this spring. Pittsburgh didn’t get a runner to second base until the 6th inning. Villaneuva, shows the way to do it, five pitch inning, all strikes. And preserves his own 0.00 ERA. Zach Stewart however four balls to walk his first hitter in the 8th then gets Chase d'Arnaud, Hernandez and Presley on nine pitches. His second inning though a little different and took 16 pitches but finished them off with two on base getting his ERA down to 3.86. Pitching for the Jays this week has been excellent. The Boss has some difficult choices in that bullpen.

The not so good: Encarnacion takes third strike (?) with bases loaded in the first inning and no one out. Awful. Strikes out again with Snider in scoring position at second. Strikes out again in the seventh with runners at second and third, leaves seven on base today. 0-4 today all strikeouts. OUCH bigtime. For my money young Brett Lawrie is much better bet right now, and play him at third put Bautista in right and Thames DH. Am not a fan of Edwin, although each time I write him off he comes through. Cito always liked the guy and said he was streaky.

Still not so good: Arencibia 0-3 hitting just .056, and sad to see him swinging and striking out on three pitches, just can’t get a break. How much longer do they go with him before his confidence is truly shot?

Even worse; Jays 4-16 with runners in scoring position today, with of course Encarnacion the biggest offender.

Rough day at the office: J. C. Romero, Phillies pitcher leaves his $190,000 Porsche at the Clearwater dealer for servicing, and it stolen overnight, ouch.
More bad news for the Phillies, Dominic Brown finally with a chance to make that RF spot his now that Werth has gone, breaks his hand yesterday and could be gone up to 6 weeks depending on surgery. But as always with the Phillies depth they replace him with Ben Francisco who already has two home runs in six games.

Rays lose another as Phillies get winning run in the bottom of the 9th. Rays now 1-7 on the spring.