Dominant Drabek: Rookie starter Kyle Drabek in form as Jays down Twins 6-1
Posted April 2, 2011 3:48 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Kyle Drabek earned his first major-league victory as the Toronto Blue Jays held the Minnesota Twins to just a single hit in a 6-1 victory at Rogers Centre on Saturday.
The 23-year-old rookie right-hander gave up the lone hit in the sixth and allowed one earned run over seven innings. Drabek, acquired in the Roy Halladay trade with Philadelphia in December 2009, walked three and struck out seven.
Catcher Jose Molina and third baseman Jayson Nix hit solo home runs and left-fielder Travis Snider knocked in a pair of runs to give Toronto its second straight victory.
Drabek earned pitcher of the year honours in the double-A Eastern League last year and is pegged to be one of the team’s cornerstones for the future. He’s in the No. 2 slot in the rotation while Brandon Morrow is out with a right elbow strain.
The six-foot-one, 220-pound Drabek didn’t give up a hit until Denard Span’s one-out single to left field in the sixth inning. He threw 101 pitches on the day, 54 for strikes.
Snider entered the game in the fifth as a pinch-hitter and swatted the first pitch he saw from reliever Kevin Slowey to the right-field corner to score a pair. In the top of the sixth, he fumbled a ball in left field that allowed Span to reach second. It didn’t faze Drabek though, as the youngster struck out Tsuyoshi Nishioka and got Joe Mauer to ground out to end the threat.
Shawn Camp and Mark Rzepczynski both pitched an inning in relief. Francisco Liriano (0-1) absorbed the loss after giving up four earned runs over four-plus innings. Toronto had 11 hits on the day.
It was much quieter in the stadium Saturday after a raucous sellout crowd of 47,984 took in Toronto’s 13-3 blowout victory a night earlier in the regular-season opener for both teams. The announced attendance was 27,194 and the game took two hours 30 minutes to play.
Drabek (1-0) was called up by the Blue Jays for a few games last summer. He went 0-3 with a 4.76 earned-run average over 17 innings.
