Fans probably had a tough time figuring out who was heading to the postseason and who was nearly 30 games out of first place during the Blue Jays’ thrashing of the Red Sox on Wednesday night at Fenway.
Boston had a tough time battling Roy Halladay, their playoff-clinching celebration hangover and an explosive Blue Jays offense. And the end result wasn’t pretty as Toronto dominated from all angles en route to a 12-0 shutout win and series sweep over the Sox.
The Blue Jays out-hit the Red Sox 17-3 and kept the long-ball theme going as they smacked four additional homers off Sox pitching, upping their total to 13 in the three-game series.
Blue Jays 12, Red Sox 0
Fenway Park, Boston, Mass.
September 30, 2009
Headliner: The only thing more impressive than the Jays' offense was the tall man in gray standing on the pitching rubber. Halladay kept the Sox bats hitless through 5 1/3 innings before Joey Gathright
sliced a single to left field. The ace finished with six strikeouts in
his three-hit masterpiece and needed just 100 pitches in his ninth
complete game of the season.
The win was his 17th of the year as the 12-year veteran evened his career
record to 14-14 against the Red Sox. It was his second straight
complete-game shutout, making him the only pitcher in Major League
Baseball to achieve that feat this year.
Dirt dog: Toronto DH Randy Ruiz went 4-for-6 with two homers and was just a triple shy of
the cycle. Ruiz smashed solo homers in the third and sixth, scored four
times, drove in two and has now doubled in each of his last four games.
Jays center fielder Vernon Wells and second baseman Aaron Hill also tallied three hits apiece. Hill also added a pair of RBIs and finished the series with six hits and four RBIs.
Better luck next time: Tim Wakefield was knocked around for five runs on seven hits in just three innings of work. Wake walked two and allowed two homers while striking out two in what will likely be his last outing of the regular season.
Halladay had David Ortiz's number, as Big Papi struck out three times and was hit by a pitch.
Key moment: The Blue Jays put this one away for good in the fifth after tacking three more runs onto what was already a 5-0 lead. The Jays made it 8-0 in the blink of an eye thanks to two singles, a double and a sacrifice fly.
On deck: Jon Lester gets one last tuneup before the postseason on Thursday as he takes on the Cleveland Indians in Game 1 of the final regular-season series of the year.
Lester could be considered lucky to be making his scheduled start after taking a line drive off his leg last weekend against the Yankees. Lester suffered his first loss in over two months in the scary outing at Yankee Stadium, where he coughed up five runs on eight hits before being removed in the third after the injury.
The southpaw is 2-0 in five career starts against the Indians and is 6-3 with a 3.07 ERA at Fenway this year.
Facing Lester will be righty Carlos Carrasco, who is looking for his first career win. Carrasco was called up in early September and has lost three of four starts including his last outing in which he have up four runs on six hits in five innings against the Tigers.
