Dominating Tampa Bay’s anemic offense is one thing.
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The rally came just a half-inning after Toronto had taken a two-run lead in the bottom of the eighth.
Prior to signing with the Ducks, Hill was in the Washington Nationals organization under a minor league contract (per MLB Trade Rumors), but was released in late-June.
Saturday did not go as planned for the Toronto Blue Jays. He allowed four runs – three earned – and eight hits over 7 1-3 innings. But from there, Hill was nearly unhittable. Also, on the day of the Boston Marathon Bombings, he wrote “Pray for Boston” on his glove in a gesture that speaks a lot about him as a person. Sitting out all of August seems to have been a good move. Tulowitzki’s left scapula will not be healed fully in time for the post-season – his availability depends on his ability to play with discomfort if not outright pain. The scouts on hand from Houston, Kansas City, and Philadelphia liked what they saw.
Edwin Encarnacion had a home run and an RBI single as Toronto (85-63) had its three-game win streak snapped.
Bogaerts singled to right and Ortiz followed with an RBI single to left. There’s so much movement, so much sweeping.
“You probably look at who’s pitching the best”, he said. The 23-year-old, taped to a pole in the dugout in Sunday’s win over Philadelphia, was tagged for seven runs in just 1 2-3 innings in a loss to the Yankees on Wednesday.
Stroman (2-0), who returned last Saturday after tearing knee ligaments in spring training, started at Rogers Centre for the first time since September 8, 2014, when he tossed a three-hitter against the Chicago Cubs. Hill helped the Red Sox take the series finale, as they won two out of three from the AL East leaders. After completing seven innings in 14 of 16 starts from May 17-Aug.
Hill filled the strike zone with curveballs that the Blue Jays simply couldn’t handle. But add someone they must, because that starting five just isn’t good enough.
Certainly we have to come to grips with what this is.
Although he claimed he had “similar stuff” his last outing, Hill said “mixing in the changeup in the fourth inning” was really a key.
“New York is a new team”, Navarro said. Unfortunately for the Jays they were in the shift with Josh Donaldson covering the bag at 2nd and Bogaerts made a heads up read and broke for 3rd with no one covering the base.
Buehrle said no one has talked to him about the situation yet, though the pitchers have certainly discussed it among themselves. At any rate, Gasol and Spain beat Jonas Valanciunas and Lithuania this weekend in Eurobasket and Gasol was named to his eighth all-FIBA team, moving past Kresimir Cosic (of the former Yugoslavia, whose final selection was in 1979) and Sergei Belov of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, whose last all-star team was also in 1979. But even as the second inning got a bit away from him he never felt out of control.
“I think we got lucky”, Lovullo said. “I looked forward to making another quality pitch after that”.
“I’ve got to do a better job”, Osuna said.
By most accounts, the top guys will pitch against the Yankees: Price on Monday, Marco Estrada on Tuesday and Marcus Stroman on Wednesday. Nowadays it’s officially called the “Rogers Centre”, but I’m not going to refer to it as such… because I don’t believe in words that end in “-re”.
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At this point of the season the lineup is in a constant state of flux as interim manager Torey Lovullo attempts to get some early input of questions that will need to be addressed in the off-season.
