The Star
Jays swept away by Angels
“He knows how well he pitched,” Jays manager Cito Gaston said after Romero’s five-hit effort. “I know I went over and told him, and I know our pitching coach (Bruce Walton) did, our coaching staff and his teammates, so he knows."
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Romero’s confidence didn’t suffer after the game. Far from it. He felt good about his effort against a very good Angels lineup that is patient at the plate and took all three games from the Jays over the weekend.
“There’s days when I pick them up, and there’s days when they pick me up. We’re a team and we’re in it together, so it is what it is,” Romero said with a hint of defiance.
Power-hungry Jays chill out
Here were the Blue Jays, with five or six automatic outs in the lineup — the struggling Overbay almost counts twice in this respect — leading the world in long balls. They also are leading the majors in times striking out, with Santana adding another half-dozen in his four-hit complete-game beauty, and have a cruddy batting average and only a middling slugging percentage.
It shouldn’t add up, but it looks like a team that can’t hit a lot that still happens to be leading the majors in homers and XBH. Temporarily, anyway.
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“Santana’s a good pitcher and he’s got tremendous stuff. He did a good job,’’ Romero said, adding that he tries to stay oblivious of the score. “I try not to pay attention to the scoreboard. My job is to put up zeros and that’s all I’m worried about.
Jays prospect Adeiny Hechavarria faces plenty of hurdles on way to the bigs
On the field, White Sox shortstop and fellow Cuban expatriate Alexei Ramirez doesn’t foresee Hechavarria struggling. The game is the same, he says, although it certainly is faster. Major league pitching is better than in Cuba’s national series, where Hechavarria hit .262 in 2008-2009, but Ramirez thinks Hechavarria has the talent and drive to make the transition.
“He has good hands and a lot of promise,” Ramirez said. “He’s fast. He can reach the big leagues quickly. All he needs is dedication and the results will come.”
But away from the field, problems can arise.
On his way to the majors, Angels first baseman Kendry Morales endured small stadiums and 3 a.m. bus rides between minor-league towns, but says none of that compared to the inconvenience of not knowing English.
As for any advice he would give Hechavarria, Morales kept it simple.
“If you don’t know English, learn as fast as possible,” Morales said, in Spanish.
Globe and Mail
Angels sweep Blue Jays
Don’t say you weren’t warned.
That, in effect, was what Cito Gaston said yesterday after watching his grip-and-rip Toronto Blue Jays get swept by the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, which rode Ervin Santana’s sixth career complete game for a 3-1 win and a sweep of their three-game series.
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“It’s the kind of team I told you we had in spring training,” Gaston said, after his club’s record fell to 7-6. “We have some guys who are going to hit 20 or 25 home runs, and we’re pretty much going to have to live on that. So, that’s the way it’s going to be – pretty much the team you have out there.”
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Santana, who carried an earned-run average of 6.94 into the game, shrugged off any questions about whether he was surprised to toss a complete game against a team that owns him. Not the way it approached him yesterday.
“I had less pitches because they swing at everything,” said Santana, who threw 74 pitches through seven innings and needed just 106 pitches in total. “So I knew I had something left at the end of the game.”
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Asked if series like this were part of the development curve, Gaston paused.
“You never want to go out and expect that,” said Gaston. “You want to go out there and try to win every ballgame you can. And in the end, if there’s something learned that day, then that’s development. If you lose and there’s nothing learned that day? That’s not development.
No talking about the no-no
Buck Martinez, the Toronto Blue Jays play-by-play voice on Rogers Sportsnet, has had two games go into the seventh inning this young season with a Toronto pitcher nursing a no-hitter. But as Shaun Marcum and Ricky Romero no-hit their opponents until late in the game, viewers discovered “no-hitter” seemed to be the hardest words to say for Martinez and analyst Pat Tabler (also a former player).
There were euphemisms about players not rounding first base successfully. Or suggestions that opponents lacked for men on base. But the no-no was a no-no between Martinez and Tabler.
“I guess I’m still a baseball player at heart,” Martinez said yesterday. “I was a little reluctant to say the words. It’s not like we’re in the dugout. But I know that players have the TV on in the clubhouse, and I’d hate for a young guy to go in there and hear me say ‘no-hitter.’ I don’t know what it might do to him. I suppose old habits die hard.”
Toronto Sun
Ricky shines in loss, but few see it
Along with the withering Jays batting averages, the attendance continued to plummet. A year ago, April 17-19, the Jays had their first home weekend series against a non-power, non-draw outfit, the Oakland A’s. The three-game set drew a total of 62,134 fans, with the Saturday and Sunday matinees each topping 20,000.
Yesterday marked the end of the Jays’ first weekend at home and they faced the Angels — the West Division champs whose lineup boasts several exciting players — and drew just 14,246. Topped by Saturday’s crowd of 17,187, the series attracted 46,212 spectators, which was 15,922 fewer fans than the first home weekend series of 2009, a decrease of 34.5%.
