It was not a very good start from Burnett but thanks to a 4-run outburst by the Jays in the 6th he ended up the winner. He gave up 4 runs over 5.2 IP giving up 6 hits, 2 walks and 1 hits batsmen. He left in the 6th w/2 runners on base and Downs had to come in to get the final out. Burnett also got bailed out in the 5th, here it was his defence. After he loaded the bases w/none out, he struck out Metcalf and got Kinsler to pop out. Then just when it looked like he would get out of the inning he goes to a full count on Catalanotto who then hits a 2B down the LF line where Lind throws it in to McDonald who relays it home in time to get Davis at the plate and stop the damage at 2.
The Jays started their 6th inning rally off w/back-to-back 1B’s but Scutaro made the ill advised decision to try and go 1st to 3rd on Rios’ hit on got thrown out. It was a close play but w/nobody out you should not be getting thrown out at third. After a pitching change and a couple walks the Jays had the bases loaded w/2 out and Barajas came up w/a huge 2-run 2B to give the Jays the lead. Rolen then followed w/a 2-run 2B of his own to give the Jays some insurance runs.
Scott Downs did a great job out of the bullpen as he went 2.1 IP to bridge the gap from Burnett to Ryan. Amazingly he only threw 19 pitches as he faced the minimum # of batters. He actually did allow 1 runner although it was due to an error by Rolen (his 2nd in as many games) but Downs picked the runner off anyways.
It is always good to see the closer get a chance to come back out in a save opportunity the night after a blown save. It is even better when he is successful as Ryan was tonight although I have to admit seeing that leadoff 1B got me just a tad worried. Despite Ryan falling behind 3-1 on Laird he got him to fly out allowing me to take a breath. Ryan then retired the next 2 to close it out.
I was a little surprised to see Rios stealing on the 2-0 pitch to Overbay in the 3rd. It is not a count I like to see guys stealing on. The large majority of the time the pitch will be a fastball giving the catcher more time to throw the runner out. Plus if the pitch is a ball then the hitter will be in a 3-0 count and has a good chance to walk pushing you to 2nd anyways. Also once the pitcher has 2 balls on the batter it is highly unlikely they will pitch out no matter how many strikes there are.
I’m not sure why Barajas even bothered trying to pick off Hamilton at 3rd base in the 2nd inning. It is pretty rare that a catcher is going to be able to pick off a runner at 3rd base and it is not like Hamilton was aggressively leading off 3rd. Hamilton may have scored on the groundout by Murphy anyways but you do not want to just hand them the run.
The Jays did a nice job keeping the Rangers two hit machines, Kinsler and Young, off the basepaths as the 2 combined to go 0 for 8.
Moving onto the stats:
Adv: Byrd
P-Adv: Burnett (4)
NAdv: Metcalf
P-NAdv: Burnett (16)
WG: Wilkerson (5)
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