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Blue Jays end Rays' winning streak at 7 games

The Associated Press

Toronto's Ricky Romero struck out seven hitters and improved his record to 6-3 on the season.

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By MARC LANCASTER | The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 1, 2009

Updated: 07/01/2009 11:40 pm

TORONTO - This particular script is getting old for James Shields.

Once again Wednesday afternoon, the Rays' Opening Day starter pitched well enough to win, holding the Blue Jays to two earned runs through seven innings before they tacked on a pair of solo homers late. And once again both he and the Rays came up frustratingly short, their 5-0 loss at the left hand of rookie starter Ricky Romero snapping a season-high seven-game winning streak.

As Manager Joe Maddon said the previous evening after a hard-fought victory, success generally begins and ends with pitching. But the Rays — rather adamantly — found no fault with Shields' work in the series finale.

"It's like I told him — you're not going to win if we don't score," Pat Burrell said. "The offense has got to take some responsibility for that."

Burrell and the rest did just that following the game, knowing the frustration is mounting for their hard-driving teammate. Shields' ERA in 17 starts this season is an impressive 3.50 and he leads the staff with 10 quality starts, but the Rays have scored a total of 46 runs in his outings — just 2.71 per game.

"He's such a great pitcher; I feel terrible when he's out there just battling his butt off and we can't get him enough runs to win," Ben Zobrist said. "We know it's going to come around. He's just had kind of hard luck this year."

As Burrell pointed out, some of that luck is undoubtedly due to Shields, with his spot in the rotation, matching up against the opposition's best pitcher more often than not. That wasn't necessarily the case Wednesday, though Romero has been outstanding for the Jays since settling into the rotation.
The left-hander has now produced quality starts in nine of his 11 big-league appearances, and his ERA is down to 2.85 after eight shutout innings in his first look at the Rays. Romero allowed only four hits Wednesday, keeping Tampa Bay's hitters at bay with his change-up and getting the big out every time he needed it.

"Their guy was good," said Maddon, all but wiping his brow in admiration. "I mean, come on. He pitched really well."

Romero came up huge when he most needed to late in the game, putting down potential Rays rallies with double plays in the seventh and eighth.

In the first instance, the Rays loaded the bases with one out on singles by Carl Crawford and Carlos Peña and a Zobrist walk, but saw the inning come to an end when Burrell grounded into a double play.
In the eighth, the Rays caught a break when Marco Scutaro mishandled the feed on a potential double-play ball, leaving men at first and second with nobody out. But the Jays broke back as pinch-hitter Willy Aybar lined one straight at Scutaro, who quickly fired back to second to double off Jason Bartlett.

After a B.J. Upton walk kept the Rays' hopes alive, Crawford hammered a pitch to the warning track in right but came up just short of homering in a third consecutive game.

"I thought Carl's ball was out," Maddon said. "I think all the Canadians stood up in right field and collectively [blew] and pushed it back in."

Toronto compounded that disappointment by tallying back-to-back homers in the eighth to send Shields packing for the day, but by that point the game seemed fairly well in hand for the Jays anyway.

The Rays have been on the opposite end of this type of game plenty of times. Not that that knowledge improved Shields' mood.

"I felt great," he said, keeping his remarks clipped and concise. "I thought I battled."

That he did, but yet again, it wasn't enough.

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