McGowan Goes The Distance In Win Over Mariners
Posted June 10, 2008 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Released by the Seattle Mariners almost exactly one month earlier, Brad Wilkerson came back to haunt his former team Tuesday night.
Wilkerson ripped a go-head solo shot in the fifth inning to give a dealing Dustin McGowan the advantage he needed in leading the Toronto Blue Jays to a 3-1 victory.
Vernon Wells, a game-time decision playing on a sore right ankle, also hit a solo shot while Scott Rolen drove in a big insurance run in the sixth as the Blue Jays (34-33) moved over .500 again with just their third win in 10 games.
It was a sorely needed bounce-back effort after a soul-sucking 3-2, 10-inning loss Monday to the dreadful Mariners (23-42), who own the worst record in baseball and have lost eight of their past 10.
The Blue Jays came up empty despite loading the bases with no one out in the 10th in that one, the last of several chances to score they wasted en route to the hard-to-swallow defeat.
Driving the offence Tuesday before a crowd of 36,170 were the two home runs, just their seventh multi-homer performance of the season. It came in a crisply played game of two hours two minutes.
Wells, sore from a running catch he made against the centre-field wall and an awkward step on first base Monday, led off the second by crushing a 2-0 offering from Carlos Silva (3-7) over the wall in centre for his seventh of the season.
McGowan (5-4) gave that run back in the fifth on one of his few mistakes of the night, a Jeremy Reed solo shot to right, but Wilkerson restored the lead by turning on a 3-2 pitch and blasting it to centre for his third homer of the year. Since joining the Blue Jays on May 9 immediately after the Mariners released him, Wilkerson is hitting .250 with three homers and 14 RBIs.
Rolen made it 3-1 an inning later when he followed Matt Stairs’ double with a single to right.
Given a second lead, McGowan made it stand up for his third career complete game.
His big inning came in the sixth, when he stranded the potential tying run after Raul Ibanez reached third with one out. Jose Lopez struck out and Richie Sexson flew out to end threat.
McGowan gave up five hits and walked two while striking out seven.
Silva gave up three runs on nine hits to lose his seventh straight decision.
