Jays Beat Rays 2-1
Posted August 6, 2010 10:31 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
There has been little reward for Brett Cecil’s brilliance on the mound of late and the Toronto Blue Jays left-hander was due some good fortune.
He got just that Friday night, when counterpart Matt Garza’s throwing error on Jose Bautista’s grounder leading off the seventh set the stage for Lyle Overbay’s two-out RBI double, the difference in a 2-1 win over the Tampa Bay Rays.
Cecil (9-5) allowed a run in seven dominant innings to earn only his second victory in his past six starts, despite allowing just nine earned runs over 39 1-3 innings during that span. He’s pitched in some hard luck games and had little run support behind him, but got just enough before a crowd of 22,520 in helping the Blue Jays (57-52) improve to 4-6 against the Rays (67-42) this season.
Cecil is 3-0 against the AL wild-card leaders.
Garza (11-6), making his second start since no-hitting Detroit on July 26, matched Cecil for most of the night but was undone by errors which led to both Toronto runs.
The first came in the third, when second baseman Sean Rodriguez snared Jose Molina’s line drive, but then tried to double off Edwin Encarnacion at second base. Instead, his throw ended up in left field, allowing Encarnacion to race home and tie things up 1-1.
The second came in the seventh, when Garza snared Bautista’s chopper by the mound only to bounce his throw to first baseman Ben Zobrist, who bobbled it. Adam Lind followed with a one-out single before Overbay’s drive to left scored Bautista with the eventual winning run.
The Blue Jays might have had another but left-fielder Gabe Kapler gunned down Lind at home to end the inning. It didn’t matter, as Shawn Camp threw a scoreless eighth and Kevin Gregg held things down in the ninth for his 25th save.
But it was Cecil’s pitching that gave the Blue Jays their chance at the win.
After allowing Willy Aybar’s two-out RBI double in the first, he was nearly untouchable. His only other jam came in the sixth when the first two batters reached, but he got Evan Longoria to hit into a double play before striking out Zobrist to end the frame.
Cecil walked two and struck out nine while throwing 112 pitches, his second highest total of the season.
Garza allowed the two unearned runs on four hits over eight innings, while striking out four.
