{"id":15479,"date":"2011-05-19T11:57:50","date_gmt":"2011-05-19T16:57:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=15479"},"modified":"2011-05-19T11:57:50","modified_gmt":"2011-05-19T16:57:50","slug":"tampa-bay-rays-vs-toronto-blue-jays-al-east-handicapping-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/tampa-bay-rays-vs-toronto-blue-jays-al-east-handicapping-preview-15479\/","title":{"rendered":"Tampa Bay Rays vs Toronto Blue Jays AL East Handicapping Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Tampa Bay Rays seek a two-game sweep of their series against the Toronto Blue Jays with a victory at the Rogers Centre Thursday night<\/p>\n

Tampa Bay Rays at Toronto Blue Jays<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Toronto Blue Jays are coming off an ugly loss to the Tampa Bay Rays last night<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tampa Bay owns the best road record in the majors and captured a 6-5 victory last night in Toronto, winning for the 12th time in 13 games away from Tropicana Field.\u00a0 Rays outfielder Matt Joyce continues to enjoy a breakthrough year, going 1-for-3 from the plate and hitting a two-run homer in the third inning.\u00a0 The 26-year-old is hitting .414 with nine RBIs over the past nine games.\u00a0 Second baseman Ben Zobrist has also contributed in a big way offensively, hitting safely in 13 of 16 games in May, helping the club move past the offseason departures of outfielder Carl Crawford and first baseman Carlos Pena.\u00a0 Tampa Bay is 7-3 versus left-handed starters this year and 73-55 the past three campaigns.<\/p>\n

Rays starting pitcher Wade Davis is 4-3 with a 3.47 ERA in eight starts this season and the club has won five of his last six outings.\u00a0 The right-hander picked up a 6-0 home loss last time out against the Orioles, surrendering four runs and seven hits over 5 1\/3 innings.\u00a0 Davis has tallied a 2-1 mark and 3.57 ERA in three road starts, but has issued 11 walks in 17 2\/3 frames.\u00a0 In four career starts versus the Blue Jays, he is 2-1 with a 2.60 ERA and will be making his second appearance against them this year.\u00a0 He picked up a no decision in that home effort, giving up two runs and six hits over six innings.<\/p>\n

Toronto had its six-game winning streak snapped Wednesday and lost for the sixth time in nine tries at the Rogers Centre.\u00a0 The defense committed five errors in the defeat, which sent the 14,415 fans home displeased in the team\u2019s effort.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s somewhat inexplicable, we have been playing very good baseball,\u201d said manager John Farrell.\u00a0 \u201cI think the miscues, the hole we dug ourselves, were too much to come back from tonight.\u201d\u00a0 The Blue Jays are now just 9-9 at home this season, following a year in which they finished 12 games above .500 at the venue.\u00a0 Toronto is 15-17 versus right-handed starters this season.<\/p>\n

Blue Jays starting pitcher Ricky Romero is coming off a brilliant start and will look to even up his record against the Rays.\u00a0 The left-hander tossed 8 2\/3 shutout innings at Minnesota last time out, scattering four hits while striking out eight.\u00a0 Romero will be making his fifth home start of the year, coming in with a 1-2 mark and 3.75 ERA.\u00a0 In six previous outings versus Tampa Bay, he has compiled a 2-3 record and 4.12 ERA, including a 2-0 home loss on April 24.\u00a0 The 27-year-old managed to strike out a season-high 10 batters in that effort.<\/p>\n

Bettors will likely back the Rays due to their 6-1 mark in Davis\u2019 last seven road starts, while the Blue Jays are 2-5 in Romero\u2019s last seven outings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Tampa Bay Rays seek a two-game sweep of their series against the Toronto Blue Jays with a victory at the Rogers Centre Thursday night Tampa Bay Rays at Toronto Blue Jays Tampa Bay owns the best road record in the majors and captured a 6-5 victory last night in Toronto, winning for the 12th […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":4579,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444],"tags":[1575,1395,1748,150,223,1513],"class_list":["post-15479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-al-east","tag-ricky-romero","tag-rogers-centre","tag-tampa-bay-rays","tag-toronto-blue-jays","tag-wade-davis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15479"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15479\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15481,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15479\/revisions\/15481"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}