Morrow another fine outing to beat Burnett and the Yankees

Jays v Yankees in Dunedin.

Pitching battle of the respective rotation number twos. Morrow v AJ Burnett. Another sell-out in Dunedin and with all the standing room only tickets sold. Loads of Yankees fans here today, Jays will want to take them out of the game fast.

Line-ups: Jays: Patterson playing centre today, McDonald, Bautista, Lind, Rivera, Snider, Molina, Thames DG and McCoy playing short.
Yankees: Gardner, Martin, Granderson, Swisher, Posada, Chavez, Nunez, Belliard and Pena. Not the Yankees first team line-up but that’s ok, any
Jays get out to an early lead and never looked back getting to Burnett for four runs in his first three innings. AJ was not helped with two fielding errors by his infield but neither did her help himself with wild pitch and passed ball and a hit batsman.Strange it was the hitter after Molina's home run. Umpire also thought so with a warning to AJ. Jays fans don’t have much sympathy for his misery.

Meantime the Jays hitters had a great day with hits by eight of the starting nine. Snider and Lind both continue their strong performances with hits to keep their averages over .400. Snider now .448 and Lind .406.
Burnett definietly saw a Jays team playing ball that he was not familiar with in his stay in Toronto. Speed, and this team is going to surprise many this season.

The excellent: Morrow had another excellent outing escaping some trouble in the first, five scoreless innings, three hits, six strikeouts, so three walks, but gets his ERA down to miniscule 0.75
The very good: Home runs to Jose Molina getting a start instead of Arencibia and making the most of it. Jose with a fine throw to second for caught stealing as well as a bullet home run over left field fence. I am sure that Arencibia will still get the nod to start, but Molina certainly provides huge insurance.

Great plays: Ledezma pickoff of Mesa at second base. Rivera throw to the plate to get Gardner.
Doubles: Lind his fifth, and Snider his third.
Stolen bases to Bautista and Patterson, both off Burnett.

Not so good: Runners in scoring position. 3-11. Rzepcynzki did not do his starting chances much good today, letting Yankees back into this thing with six hits and five runs and three walks. Jays still have that number five spot in rotation wide open with neither Litsch nor Rzepcynzki making a major claim on the role. Ledezma rescued him in the 8th with one pitch for the final out with Yankees threatening to take this one and finished them off in the ninth.

Jays outhit by Yankees 9-8 but made the most of their extra base hits.
Jays move to 11-9 for the spring and Yankees fall to 8-12. Revenge matchup tomorrow in Tampa and more than likely the big Yankee guns. But Jays should be very happy with this one.

JJay at her first spring game says she is very impressed with this team: “These are not the same Jays I saw 6 months ago. The hitting is still strong – HR’s by McCoy and Molina- but the difference is that this year they will complement it with small ball – 2 more stolen bases today! These guys are not only skilled, but also fast and strong. It will be an interesting year if they keep playing like this. No one will expect the Jays to bunt and steal bases- Burnett sure was caught off guard today!”