Fri Apr 11 12:38:31 2008

Comment | Email | Print

Jays hit road on down note

---

(Sports Network) - The Toronto Blue Jays were riding high after sweeping the Boston Red Sox last weekend in the first series of the year at Rogers Centre.

However, a quick three-game visit from the Oakland Athletics has erased all the good feelings the team may have had and it now begins a six-game stretch away from home, beginning in Texas, where Toronto has struggled mightily over the past couple of seasons.

The Blue Jays lost all three of their matchups in the Lone Star State last season and has lost in 16 of their last 19 visits to Arlington.

If Toronto is going to get untracked in Texas, though, it will need to bring more to the table offensively than it did while getting swept by the A's. After managing 23 runs in sweeping the Red Sox, the Jays crossed the plate just five times over the final two games against the A's.

"We clicked on all cylinders on the weekend," Vernon Wells said. "Now everything fell off the table. We have to do a better job than that. We did not do our jobs."

The lack of offense in the series has manager John Gibbons scratching his head, as the feisty skipper lashed out at the media following Thursday's loss.

"Give me what to switch up and I'll do it," Gibbons said. "What do you recommend? Anything? Your team is your team and we like this team. We just have to stick it out with them."

Over the final two losses to the A's, the Jays combined to go 4-for-27 with runners in scoring position with 24 runners stranded. Thursday, alone, the team left 13 runners on base, including seven between the ninth and 12th innings, while going just 2-for-16 with runners in scoring position for the game.

Losing at home to Oakland, though, is nothing new for the Jays, who have now dropped eight straight to the A's north of the border, which matches the club record set in 2002 and equaled in 2003.

RYAN PROGRESSING

B.J. Ryan is working his way back to the big leagues, while still recovering from Tommy John surgery that cost him most of his 2007 campaign. Ryan, who felt some soreness in the arm during the spring, is scheduled to make his fourth rehab outing at some point this weekend with Class A Dunedin. He had been slated to go to Triple-A Syracuse, but with the bad weather up there, Toronto thought keeping him in Florida would be a better idea.

The club is hoping that he is just two or three minor league outings away from returning.

Jeremy Accardo, who did an admirable job as the team's closer in Ryan's absence last season, has saved three games this year, but blew a save on Wednesday and is 0-2 with a 10.38 earned run average this year.

FORMER JAY ADMITS TO STEROID USE

Former big leaguer Ed Sprague, who played in Toronto from 1991-98, is the latest former player to admit to taking some sort of performance enhancing drug. In a newspaper interview Sprague said he used Androstenedione and amphetamines before either was banned in the game.

Sprague averaged about 14 home runs per season over his 11-year career that also included stops in Pittsburgh, Oakland, San Diego and Boston, but belted a career-high 34 homers in 1996 with the Blue Jays. He also drove in a 101 runs that year - also a career-high.

"It could have been '96", Sprague told the Stockton Record. "I could have taken Andro then, and I might have. I don't remember everything I took."

WHO'S HOT

Alex Rios, who recently signed a long-term extension with the club, is hitting .333 this season and has reached base safely in 21 straight games dating back to last season.

WHO'S NOT

Frank Thomas has yet to find his groove and is hitting a paltry .182 on the season with three homers and 10 RBI. However, eight of those RBI came in the Red Sox series. Thomas was just 1-for-12 against the A's, but that one hit was a home run.

ON DECK

The Jays head to Texas this weekend for a three-game set. Jesse Litsch will be on the hill tonight and will be followed in the rotation by Roy Halladay on Saturday and A.J. Burnett on Sunday. Following that series Toronto will close its trek with a three-game stop in Baltimore.