The Toronto Blue Jays not only sweep the Tampa Bay Rays, they dominated in all aspects of the game in their recent series.
In the first game of the series, Toronto capitalized on Tampa’s mistakes, as two of their runs were unearned.
We also saw the first of Toronto’s strong pitching performances in the series, with Brett Cecil going seven complete innings while giving up one earned run on four hits.
In the second game, the attendance rose to 24,168 to watch the highly anticipated debut of Toronto’s top catching prospect, J.P. Arencibia (appropriately dubbed “The Franchise” by Toronto Blue Jays die-hard fans).
And boy, did he live up to that claim.
He hit a home run on the first pitch he saw in his first at-bat and ended up hitting one more homer, going 4-for-5 with three RBI and finishing a triple away from the cycle.
In the final game, it was all about the Brandon Morrow show.
Many were upset that Jays manager Cito Gaston started Morrow’s normal battery mate Jose Molina instead of Arencibia.
We don’t hate you now, Cito.
No offense to Arencibia, but I don’t think Morrow would have had the performance he had Molina not been in the lineup.
Molina has 593 career games of catching experience in the MLB, compared to Arencibia’s one. If you’re not a math genius, that’s a difference of 592 games.
Now, to Morrow himself.
Morrow ended up striking 17 batters. Seventeen! He also no-hit the Rays for 8 2/3 innings.
Among Morrow’s strikeout victims were Evan Longoria, Carl Crawford, and Ben Zobrist, three of Tampa’s elite hitters.
The big highlight of this game was the leaping catch Vernon Wells made at the wall to protect Morrow’s no-hit bid. In a weird coincidence, DeWayne Wise was playing left field. Wise made a leaping catch in Mark Buerhle’s perfect game last year.
For Morrow, this could be the start of something special. For a guy known as a fastball pitcher, we definetly saw Morrow come out of his shell and throw the filthy breaking ball never scene before his time in Toronto.
If Morrow had retired Longoria and gotten the final out, there would be no doubt in anyone’s mind that this was the best pitching performance in Toronto History.
No Hitter? No. Best Pitching Performance in Jays’ History? Yes.
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