Adam Lind went 4-4 as the Jays won against the Rays. The rubber match is a day game today, at 1:10.
Lind is on fire at the moment, he is hitting over .500 on the road trip and he has moved his batting average over .300. The Jays need him because Jose Bautista is out until the weekend and no-one else on the team is "hot". Consider:
Juan Rivera did have a hit last night but his batting average is .215.
Yunel Escobar has cooled off from his hot start and his OPs is down to 681.
Johnny Mc is back to being Johnny Mc.
Rajai Davis and David Cooper are hitting under .200.
And so on. Pop quiz.....other than Lind, only two Jays who played yesterday have an OPS over 700. Can you name them?
David Cooper had a big double but that was his only hit. In the minor leagues Cooper was a singles and doubles hitter who rarely struck out. Now in the majors he is, as expected, not quite as good a hitter but with a few more K's. He is Lyle Overbay lite.
Yesterday each of the infielders made a misplay, not all were called errors. The biggest play might have been the Rivers-Escobar-Molina play at the plate. In retrospect that was key. Even though Yunel made his first error last night I have to say he is fun to watch play defense. He has a great arm and he can pick it.
The BJ Upton at-bat in the ninth was fun. Here is the Brooks Baseball version of the strikezone for that at-bat:
The third strike call from Chad Fairchild was way inside. Strike two looked pretty close to mebut pitch FX says it was a ball too.
Brandon Morrow was superb and Jason Frasor and Marc Rzepczynski backed him up. When Francisco came into the game it could have been the start of a closer debate. Francisco didn't do himself any favours by struggling through his save. His best pitching might have been in the last at-bat by Zobrist when he mixed his pitches and got strike one and two on breaking balls. His fastball command was not good.
The answer to the pop quiz is Corey Patterson and Jose Molina. They are your second and third best performing hitters from yesterdays lineup, discuss.
Ricky Romero has an oblique strain so Kyle Drabek starts today. Can he throw strikes? Who will catch him? It is a day game after a night game. I don't know if Molina can go back to back at his age.
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20110505091914835