Game 47 – Remembering Old Bad Habits

Back to the old ways of not hitting w/RISP after they hit pretty well on the road trip (at least after CLE). It was 1 for 10 in this game and the glaring aspect was the failure w/the bases loaded. First in the 2nd inning they loaded them w/2 outs and Hill couldn’t get the big hit. Then in the 8th they loaded them w/nobody out but Stairs went down looking and Stewart hit into a DP. And finally in the 9th they loaded them w/1 out but Hill popped out and Rios struck out looking. I found it funny that all the TOR papers were pointing out the fact that Rios went down looking to end the game but I think the bigger AB’s were Stairs and Stewart in the 8th and Hill in the 9th. All 3 AB’s came w/less than 2 outs and therefore they didn’t require a hit to knock in a run, a fly ball or a well placed ground ball would cash a run, in fact all Stairs had to do was basically put it in play to anywhere but the pitcher to score a run, even if it means hitting into a DP.

Not sure I would have pulled Frasor in the 8th w/only 1 lefty due up but Carlson has shown he can get both LH and RH hitters out. Carlson got the job done only giving up the intentional BB to 1 of the 2 RH’s.

It was an ok outing from McGowan. He walked too many and that led to a high pitch count but he held the Angels in check. Of course the Angels have had similar problems to the Jays scoring runs, as evidenced by their 2 for 9 w/RISP. I’m not sure if all the hype in the preseason about McGowan breaking out. especially in fantasy baseball, has McGowan trying too hard to strike everybody out and consequently throwing a lot more balls but I haven’t seen the same McGowan as last yr.

I think Hill would have scored on the Rolen single in the 8th but w/nobody out if doesn’t hurt to hold him. You have to expect he will score in that situation over 90% of the time and its not like he was the tying run.

Now for some stats:
Adv+: Guerrero, Rolen (1)
P-Adv+: Shields, McGowan (4)
NAdv: Anderson, Rodriguez, Zaun (2), Stairs (1)
P-NAdv: Lackey, Shields, McGowan 2 (10)