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6 + 6 = 7: Blue Jays lose seventh straight

Jesse Litsch of the Toronto Blue Jays pitched an odd game at Pittsburgh on Saturday night.

In Litsch’s six innings, he allowed only six baserunners; yet the Blue Jays lost their seventh straight, 6-3 against the mediocre Pirates.

The Pirates hit three two-run bombs off Litsch (7-4), getting out to a 6-1 lead by the fourth inning.

Overall though, you can’t say it was a bad start by Litsch.

In the first, Litsch retired the first two batters before giving up a single and Jason Bay’s home run.

In the second with one out, Litsch surrendered a single and Raul Chavez tagged him for another homer.

Finally in the fourth, Jose Bautista followed a walk with another two-run blast.

In those innings, only two Pirates got on base each time–of course each time everyone scored.

In the other three innings, Litsch had 1-2-3 frames, getting mostly groundouts or liners.

Just one or two bad pitches, but a very strange outing for Litsch.

The Blue Jays (35-41) look to give manager Cito Gaston his first win in three tries Sunday, when Dustin McGowan (5-5, 4.15) toes the rubber in the finale in Pittsburgh.

Notes: The Blue Jays placed Shaun Marcum on the 15-day DL with a strained right elbow on Saturday. Despite Marcum’s pedestrian 5-4 record, the right-hander has the second-best ERA in the American League (2.65), trailing only Cleveland’s Cliff Lee.

Outfielder Adam Lind was called up to take Marcum’s spot, though outfielder Kevin Mench was sent down to make room for right-handed reliever Brandon League.

During his first stint as skipper (1989-97), manager Gaston had sometimes been impatient with young players (see Ruben Sierra taking over for Shawn Green in ‘97, the reluctance to play Derek Bell in ‘92, etc). The Jays reportedly want Lind to play every day, so it will be interesting to see how Gaston handles his playing time.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 22nd, 2008 at 10:35 am and is filed under Shaun Marcum, Cito Gaston, Jesse Litsch, Adam Lind. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.