Orioles’ Jimenez grounds Blue Jays
Surrendering just five runs in a threegame series against a division rival should have launched the last-place Blue Jays into July feeling better about their position in the American League East.
But they scored just four runs over that span, tamed Thursday night by resurgent Orioles starter Ubaldo Jimenez, who held them to just two hits over eight innings. Toronto’s 2-0 loss cost them an important series, dropped the Jays to four games below .500 and sent them limping into a weekend series against the Boston Red Sox.
The Jays haven’t strung together more than three straight wins since a five-game streak in late May.
“We’re trying to get back to that .500 mark and we understand that if we put ourself in a position to get . . . back in the AL East (race), good things happen around here,” said centre fielder Kevin Pillar. “More so than anything we just want to feel good going into the all-star break.”
For Jays starter J.A. Happ, Thursday’s game represented progress even if his win-loss record won’t reflect it.
After failing to last six innings in a four-start stretch, Happ has now gone at least six in his last four starts, allowing just six runs in that stretch. Happ gave up eight hits over 61⁄
3 innings Thursday, including a pair in the third inning to set up the sacrifice fly that brought home Ruben Tejada. Baltimore scored again in the sixth, when Adam Jones singled, moved to second on a wild pitch an came home on a Trey Mancini single.
Besides those blips, Happ said he was satisfied with the way he performed.
“A couple walks today, but overall I feel like I’m getting to both sides of the plate better and better,” Happ said. “My confidence with that is good.”
Happ’s stat line would look more impressive if he didn’t have to share the mound with Jimenez.
Jimenez, a 2010 all-star with Colo- rado, had won only once in his previous 12 starts. In seven of those outings, he failed to reach the fourth inning.
But Thursday night, Jimenez crafted a brisk, efficient performance, breezing through the first three innings on 27 pitches. Jimenez has twice led the league in wild pitches, but through three innings he missed the strike zone only five times.
By the seventh, Jimenez still had permitted just two Jays to reach base — second baseman Ryan Goins on an opposite-field double and first baseman Justin Smoak on a hard-fought base-on-balls. Jimenez began Thurs- day with a 7.26 ERA, but by the time he stuck out Kendrys Morales to end the seventh, he had whittled that figure to 6.59.
Pillar hit a two-out double to right field in the eighth, but Jimenez coaxed Ryan Goins to pop out to third base to end the inning and cut his ERA to 6.48.
The outing was Jimenez’s longest since a complete-game win over Detroit last September.
“Ubaldo, he’s always been tough on us,” Jays manager John Gibbons said. “He was good tonight, but he’s always had out number.”
Jimenez’s recent history didn’t hint at the performance. He had gone just 2-3 at the Rogers Centre, posting a 6.33 ERA. And in five previous June starts, Jimenez had lasted past the fourth inning just once.
Despite those numbers, Pillar said Jimenez’s pedigree suggests he’s always capable of a game like Thursday’s. Opponents just don’t know when it’s coming.
“He comes out and throws the way he does; that’s what makes this game so tough,” Pillar said. “You can’t necessarily play the game according to the numbers. That’s a big-league pitcher out there who’s had a lot of success.”