Another win, another tiny crowd for Blue Jays
It’s an odd combination, really, winning baseball and a big-time player doing big things — but in front of record-low crowds.
That’s been the reality for the Jays during their season-opening homestand, and Tuesday night another chapter was written in a 4-3 come-from-behind win over Kansas City keyed by Wells’ one-out, seventh-inning double.
“I’m seeing the Vernon I didn’t see last year,” Jays manager Cito Gaston said of his cleanup hitter, who had a massive homer in the fourth, and scored the first of two runs that wiped out a 3-2 Kansas lead after his seventh-inning double.
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“You’ve gotta just deal with it,” starting pitcher Dana Eveland said about playing in front of thousands of empty seats.
“I played in Oakland (past two seasons) and we had the same kind of issues there. Obviously you prefer a big home crowd. But it’s not like you are not going ... to try hard because the crowd is not there.”
The comeback victory continued another season-long trend.
The Jays have worked for five come-from-behind wins through their first 15 games.
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Wells’ heroics put him in select company. His homer, a tape-measure job just under the third deck, tied him for the American League lead with seven and vaulted him to the major league lead for total bases.
The accompanying RBI pushed him past Joe Carter into third on the Jays’ all-time list with 737
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“Murph and I worked in spring training (especially in the last week), and I’m trying to continue that work,” said Wells, whose early-season surge also comes with a clean bill of health, his first in over a year. “If he sees something, he tells me and I try to correct it. It’s a good working relationship.”
What Murphy saw was something Gaston and the coaching staff noticed last season — Wells’ inability to get his hands going quick enough on pitches. Everything else in his swing suffered as a consequence.
Jays decide to let the sun shine in
With nice weather forecast for Wednesday, the Blue Jays are expected to have the roof open at the Rogers Centre.
Letting the sun shine on the ball field remains an obvious draw for local fans, who are the subject of ongoing focus in Toronto because of record low crowds during the Jays’ first homestand of the season.
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Several factors are taken into consideration before the Jays decide to open the roof, the obvious ones being temperature and weather. But the club also monitors developing weather patterns and shifts in temperatures over the course of games.
The Globe and Mail
Eveland struggles in Blue Jays win
Entering last night’s game against the Kansas City Royals, Dana Eveland was the No. 5 starter in the Toronto Blue Jays pitching rotation sporting some very No. 1-like numbers.
A 2-0 record to begin the season with just two runs allowed and eight hits over the course of his earlier outings would look impressive at the top of most Major League staffs.
You kind of got the sense it couldn’t last.
Struggling with the pinpoint control that he dined off of in his earlier games, Eveland was knocked down a few pegs by the Royals before being picked up by his Blue Jays teammates, who came back to record a 4-3 victory.
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The Blue Jays utilized the running game to open up a 1-0 lead in the first inning, a new wrinkle for a team that hasn’t boasted much in the way of speed demons over the last couple of seasons.
That has changed somewhat with the arrival of utility player Mike McCoy, a castoff from the Colorado Rockies who made the Blue Jays out of spring training, and outfielder Fred Lewis, who was picked up on Friday in a trade with the San Francisco Giants.
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“We haven’t had a lot of speed around here,” Gaston said before the game. “Man, there’s nothing like having speed on the ball club. I go back to the first year I managed here in ’89 and we had a little bit of both.
“We had some speed and we could manufacture a run if we needed late in a ballgame.”
National Post
Blue Jays continue to rebound on the Royals
A few late-inning wins before April is even over hardly counts for anything.
But the Toronto Blue Jays can still take many positives from their 4-3 win over the Kansas City Royals last night at the Rogers Centre, starting with the fact that they now have five come-from-behind victories in 15 games this season.
That puts them on pace for about 54 this season, a 60% improvement over the 34 they recorded in 2009.
"I think it's just one guy getting something started and it's kind of just everybody wants to jump on," said centre-fielder Vernon Wells, a player making his own personal comeback from three seasons spent more or less in an offensive wilderness.
"I think the thing with this team is guys continue to play no matter what the situation is and that's kind of the beginning of trying to build something special around here."
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Eveland laboured for the first time in three starts with the Blue Jays, giving up eight hits and two walks while generally failing to show the command that helped him to wins in his first two starts and a 1.35 ERA.
"I didn't have my best stuff and obviously it showed," Eveland said. "But I did what I could to keep the team in the game and these guys came out and swung the bats late and we pulled through. So I'm real happy."
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While Kevin Gregg earned the official save with a scoreless ninth, reliever Shawn Camp provided a key bridge to the back end of the bullpen.
The right-hander stranded a runner in scoring position in the sixth and negotiated his way out of a two-out, two-on jam of his own creation in the seventh to earn the win.
Diamondbacks rally to beat Cards and end skid
Pitcher Dan Haren wouldn't let an off-night on the mound slow him down at the plate.
Haren had a career-high four hits to overcome a shaky start and help the Arizona Diamondbacks beat the St. Louis Cardinals 9-7 on Tuesday night.
He tied a franchise record for pitchers with his four hits, set twice by former Diamondback Micah Owings. The last major-league pitcher to get four hits in a game was the Chicago Cubs' Carlos Zambrano on May 23, 2008.
Haren (2-1) gave up seven runs and nine hits in six innings, retiring the last six Cardinals he faced. The Diamondbacks broke a five-game losing streak.
"The team needed a win and I did whatever I could," Haren said. "It was hard to go out there with that lineup having given up seven runs. I'd be lying if I told you that didn't creep into my head, am I going to give up 12 runs? But I did what I could."
Toronto Sun
Wells powers Jays past Royals
By his own admission, Vernon Wells arrived at Blue Jay camp with a lot of 'splainin to do this spring. Now he’s letting his bat do the talking.
Okay, it’s still early. Fifteen games isn’t even one-tenth of a season, but the guy who wears No. 10 for Toronto, the guy who had become a lightning rod for all that ails the Jays these past few years, the guy who stoically took all the criticism and struggled on in frustrated silence, is making a lot of noise.
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Wells, who last had more than seven homers in a month in April of 2006, is now hitting .364 with a dozen RBI and an OPS of 1.308. He vowed this season he would lead this team and, at least through 15 games, he is doing just that.
Miked Up
Winning Late
It was a lovely five-hit rally what got the Blue Jays up off the mat and netted them a win and a chance to sweep the Royals. And it was a game-winning rally that came about in kind of an unusual way, at least that’s the way it seems.
Generally, over the last few years, Lady Luck hasn’t often cast her visage the Blue Jays’ way, but tonight - there she was. A Lyle Overbay fly ball in the right-centre gap that Rick Ankiel got to, but couldn’t squeeze. A Jose Bautista wormburner hit in exactly the right spot to go for an infield single, and Overbay just barely managing to dive back into third base before Willie Bloomquist could tag him. A swinging bunt by John Buck - again winding up on the perfect piece of turf to allow both a run to score and Buck to reach safely. He couldn’t have placed it in a better spot.
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Lady Luck even helped out Jason Frasor, who came within about 15 feet of having another blown save hung on his record. With a runner on and two out in the 8th, Mitch Maier crushed a 3-2 pitch into the second deck in right field, just foul. On the next pitch, Maier blasted one to deep centre field, but Vernon Wells hauled it in.
Random thoughts: Thanks for the suggestions on the blogs. Looks like they won't all be updated in time for papers this early, but maybe I'll add them later in the day if I get the chance.... I added in the OT story about the D'Backs because I thought it was interesting. Days like that are why I like the NL rules. Obviously the pitcher is often an automatic out, but it's such a game changer when you can get some production from that spot. With all of this talk of realignment maybe the Jays can move the the NL East at some point. They'd certainly have a better shot at the postseason... Obviously it's still very early, but it is great to see Vernon producing. He's taken a lot of crap over the last couple of years, but I think people were really booing JP more than they were him. Despite what some loopy posters think we are stuck with him, so if he keeps it up it'll be a nice story, even if/when the team starts to falter... I may or may not be going to my first game today depending on what's up with a sketchy buddy of mine, and it's supposed to be really nice out so that would be fun. Despite their crappy year I managed to go 2 for 2 at Jays games last year, so I'd say I'm good luck... It's nice to see the Jays board in the top three on RGM. We should really try to keep that up. I noticed that the series thread has been a little sparse this week. I know in my case I've been largely distracted by the NBA playoffs but in general I think we should all make a concerted effort to post more.
That's it, have a good one kids.
RGM Girl
SS Girl
