Jays Trounce Reds 14-1
Posted June 24, 2008 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The Toronto Blue Jays sure came out swinging Tuesday night.
And for a change they were actually connecting, too. Often and with authority.
An offensive outburst featuring season-highs in runs and hits made Cito Gaston’s first game back in Toronto as manager a brilliant one, as the Blue Jays pounded the Cincinnati Reds 14-1 on Tuesday night.
Home runs from Scott Rolen, Gregg Zaun and Alex Rios, who hit his first since May 1, led the 22-hit attack, which featured contributions up and down the lineup.
Rolen drove in four runs, Zaun knocked in three, Marco Scutaro had four hits while Lyle Overbay and Rios each scored three times to highlight a boxscore filled with crooked numbers, helping the Blue Jays (37-41) win their second straight after a season-high seven-game losing streak that cost former manager John Gibbons his job.
They also improved to 2-2 under Gaston, who picked up his first win in Toronto since a 2-0 victory over Anaheim on Sept. 9, 1997. The crowd of 28,153 roared its approval for the man who led the team to back-to-back World Series titles in 1992 and ’93, breaking out a couple of lengthy “Cito Gaston,” chants.
The fireworks at the plate came in a game dripping with intriguing subplots.
First, there was Gaston’s return, which went off without a hitch.
Next there was the offence’s reprogramming under new hitting coach Gene Tenace.
Third there was A.J. Burnett (7-7) pitching at home for the first time since his comments musing about pitching for the Chicago Cubs. The crowd showed him no ill-will, no doubt his eight innings of one-run ball helped. He walked three and struck out seven.
Then there was the J.P. Ricciardi-Adam Dunn feud, which took turns so bizarre that even a soap opera script writer would be impressed.
Ricciardi told reporters before the game that he believed the matter was closed Saturday, when he took a call from Dunn and offered an apology for ripping the Reds outfielder on the radio last week.
Only Dunn told MLB.com that it didn’t happen.
“What? Not true. One million per cent,” Dunn said.
That left Ricciardi shaking his head at what he said must have been a prank call.
“I got a call from someone who identified himself as Adam Dunn,” said Ricciardi. “It’s extremely disappointing if that’s not an accurate phone call. I apologized to the person on the phone.”
Dunn went 1-for-3 with a double.
But Gaston and the Blue Jays offence stole the show.
They had consecutive bat-around innings for the first time since Sept. 30, 2005 against Kansas City, riding a six-run first and five-run second to victory.
Reds starter Bronson Arroyo (4-7) absorbed most of the damage in the worst and shortest start of his career. He gave up 10 runs on 11 hits and a walk in one-plus inning.
Matt Stairs of Fredericton got things going in the first with his bases-loaded sacrifice fly to open the scoring and Rolen followed with a three-run shot to make it 4-0. After an Overbay double, Zaun ripped a two-run shot to right.
After the Reds made it 6-1 on Jay Bruce’s sac fly in the second, Rios led off the bottom of the inning by ending his long homer drought, Vernon Wells singled and scored on Stairs’ double. Rolen’s double then scored Stairs and the third baseman came home on Adam Lind’s single. Joe Inglett’s RBI groundout capped the inning.
Wells’ RBI single in the fifth made it 12-1, matching the team’s highest scoring game of the season, and the Blue Jays surpassed that in the sixth on Scutaro’s RBI single. Zaun’s infield single in the seventh made it 14-1.
