Live Game Notes – Jays 8 Rangers 7

Today we have live game notes from one of our founding writers, Early. A baseball history expert, you can check out his archives of historical articles spanning from the 1900’s to the present day by clicking here. Onto the live game notes.

Cito said after the game they are going to look into if BJ Ryan will continue closing. What a travesty he is. Hit batsmen, can’t throw strikes. He was very soundly booed off the field after he struck out PH David Murphy for the final out of the 9th. Only 13,000 at the Rogers Centre but it was loud and well deserved.

There were alot of up’s tonight for the Jays.

Lind looked good even though he didn’t get a hit of Rangers starter Matt Harrison. Harrison is killer on lefties. Snider was put in the 9th to pinch run and laid down a textbook bunt in the 11th against tough hard throwing lefty CJ Wilson. Interesting to note that Cito didn’t have Rolen bunt in the same situation in the 9th. If the hopes of the Jays in the years to come lay with Lind and Snider they will both have to hit vs southpaws.

Purcey was a different pitcher tonight than he was in the previous two starts. He threw 58 of 91 pitches for strikes. He only walked 2 and both those were well deserved hard fought at bats by Byrd and Nelson Cruz. He still had zip on his fastball in the 6th, topping out at 93mph. I don’t have the stats infront of me but he mixed in many curveballs and the odd change into his repetoire of usually fastballs and sliders.

Jason Frasor was throwing smoke. He was bouncing his spilt-finger pitch but he was locating his fastball well even against left-handed batters. No one could keep up to him.

On the sour side…

Alex Rios had four hits and two RBI’s. Why is this bad? They were all singles, they were all grounders and two of them were to the left side of the infield if my memory serves me correctly. He bumped his average up 50 points or so. There has been much talk of moving him down in the order but I think it would be more proper for him to move up. He was successful stealing bases last year. Cito isn’t a risk taking manager and Rios will not get a chance to steal with the heart of the order behind him.

I don’t know why Gaston left Overbay on the bench in the bottom of the 9th. He is a very solid defensive firstbaseman and would have had a better chance to snag Aaron Hill’s wayward throw.

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