Most nights the game would have been over after Stairs hit the grand slam w/Halladay going but he struggled in the 1st and the Twins got 3 back and then added one more in the 3rd to tie it. However the Jays offence came up w/a couple more big hits, back-to-back 2 out singles to cash in a walk. And if not for Jesse Crain’s wild throw, when Rolen took off too early trying to steal 3rd, leading to what proved to be a huge insurance run who knows if the Jays hold on. After Rolen tripped and fell getting all twisted around stopping to go back to 2nd then heading to 3rd, he looked so slow coming around 3rd I thought he was going to be a dead duck at home. Glad that wasn’t the case.
Although the Jays bullpen gave up 1 run, I think Gibbons did a good job handling them knowing B.J. was unavailable.
The Jays managed to go 2 for 4 w/RISP, whereas MIN went 0 for 8. The big inning may have been Halladay getting out of the 3rd only giving up one run after having 2nd and 3rd none out. If the Twins score more than 1 there to take the lead it would have really shifted the momentum. Instead the Jays score 1 in the top half of the 4th and Doc never looked back settling in for 3.2 more innings.
How about this for coincidence, Rolen has an 11-pitch AB then Stairs homers on the 1st pitch, and last night Rolen had a 15 pitch AB and Stairs homered on the 2nd pitch afterwards.
Loved to see Zaun backing up the play at 1B and being there to nail Young who took to big a turn around first. It is something you’ll see from very few other catchers. It is something that all kids should learn in little league, that no matter your position and where the play is there is always somewhere you can be backing up. It may only come in handy once every 100 times, but once is better than never.
On with the stats:
NAdv: Morneau
P-NAdv: Halladay (4)
WG: Lamb
ME(r): Young, Gomez
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