Jays End Losing Streak With 5-4 Win Over Angels
Posted August 22, 2009 3:34 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Very rarely these days do the Toronto Blue Jays ease the pressure on their starting pitcher by scoring a bunch of early runs.
Led by Vernon Wells, that’s exactly what they did Friday night, handing Mark Rzepczynski a big lead and letting the rookie lefty go to work in a 5-4 win over the American League West-leading Los Angeles Angels.
Wells doubled home a run in the four-run first and hit a solo shot in the third for a 5-0 lead as the Blue Jays (56-64) played one of their sharpest games of late to end a five-game losing streak before a crowd of 15,993.
Mike Napoli’s three-run shot off Casey Janssen in the ninth made things close for the Angels, but they still fell to 9-17 in Toronto since 2003. Janssen recovered to get two outs for his first save.
Aaron Hill opened the scoring with a solo shot and Jose Bautista capped Toronto’s first-inning outburst with a two-run single, providing Rzepczynski (2-3) with a nice early cushion.
The 23-year-old responded by throwing a career-high 6 1-3 innings, allowing just a run on three hits and a walk while striking out six. It was about as good as Rzepczynski (it’s pronounced zep-CHIN-skee) has looked in his nine big-league starts thus far, and with three starts left before he gets shut down for the season, reinforces that he can have success at the big-league level.
Most impressive was how few balls the Angels (73-47), the highest scoring team in the majors, managed to square up against him. Juan Rivera lined one right into Bautista’s glove at third base to strand runners at second and third in the first, and no one really tagged him again until Rivera doubled with one out in the seventh.
That ended Rzepczynski’s night, and Josh Roenicke served up an RBI double to Kendry Morales before escaping further damage.
The Blue Jays did most of their damage against Sean O’Sullivan (3-2), who shares a name with the great Canadian boxer of the 1980s but was knocked out early. O’Sullivan coughed up the four-spot in the first and was pulled after walking Marco Scutaro to open the second.
Scutaro also walked in the fourth, giving him 72 on the season and breaking Tony Fernandez’s team record for walks in a season by a shortstop.
Bautista was in the lineup in place of Edwin Encarnacion, who remains day-to-day with a mild strain in his left knee.
