Game 2 In Review - Jays First Victory of 2010

 Not exactly but.....

The Jays secured a victory tonight versus the Rangers, at the Ball Park in Arlington. Deep in the heart of Texas!!! (Pee Wee Herman anyone?) The Cito's #2 guy, Brian Tallet on the bump versus Canadian and oft injured Rich Harden. Early and often it was the Harden show, posting 5 K's the first time through the Jays lineup, one flaw being a solo home run by Edwin "E5" Encarnacion, making up for a defensive gaffe that lead to an early Rangers 1-0 lead.

Harden faded and elevated his pitch count in only 3 2/3 innings of work, with a night that would leave fantasy owners scratching their heads. 1 ER, 8 K's 1 H, but 5 BB's.  He left the game with 89 pitches thrown. Tallet followed Marcum's stellar effort pitching into the 7th and continuing his career dominance over the Rangers, featuring a 2.75 ERA.  As a starter, Tallet, AKA Wolverine has given up 8 hits over 12 innings pitched.

Some more interesting facts leading into this game:

Since 2006, Vernon Wells leads all American League hitters with 76 RBI's in the month of April.
Adam Lind, in 21 career games against the Rangers, has produced 28 RBI's.
And finally, E5 is on pace for 162 errors for the 2010 season.

So back to tonight's game. Early it became apparent that Tallet and the Blue Jays strategy was to pick up where Marcum left of on Monday, featuring lots of off speed pitches and lots of pitching down and away to the Rangers batters, and just like Monday, it worked well, keeping Texas off balance for most of the night. Save for a small blip of back to back home runs by Vlad and Nelson Cruz. At the dish, an apparently healthy and re-motivated Vernon Wells, buoyed by home cooking added to his AL leading April RBI totals swatting 2 deep homers to left and 3 RBI's.

The Jays benefited greatly by the inability of the Rangers pitchers to throw strikes. Despite only scratching out 5 hits, they came at the time where runners were on base. The Jays also scored on two bases loaded walks. Patience is apparently the word in the approach at the plate for the Jays 2 games in.

Kevin Gregg retired the 4 batters he saw in dominant fashion, to remain in the closer-to-be discussions, which were given a day's reprieve after Frasor worked a nearly perfect 9th inning to lock down his 1st save of the year.

As a note of concern, Travis Snider looked uncomfortable and off balance in his first three at bats, but managed to scratch out two walks and a double, before getting thrown out on a fielders choice grounder to short stop after straying too far off second base. Apparently, Travis forgot his lessons from American Legion ball about being the runner on second and what to do when a ball is hit on the ground to your right.

Tomorrow's series finale goes at 2:05pm EST and has Ricky Romero (2009 13-9) vs C.J. Wilson (2009 5-6)