The Jays were very optimistic coming into the season. But a long string of injuries have delayed those many players seasons. But when 1 door closes, 1 opens. The Jays young players have stepped it up this season, and Shawn Marcum is one of those young guys.
He was pitching yesterday against the Los Angeles Dodgers. He nneded to pitch good, as the Jays have had offensive troubles of late. On Saturday, though, it didn't matter. The lone run that Toronto's missing offense provided for Marcum -- Matt Stairs' sixth-inning home run -- was all the young pitcher needed to work with in a 1-0 win over Los Angeles at Dodger Stadium. The right-hander spun another gem for the Jays, and walked away with a hard-fought victory after outdueling Dodgers starter Derek Lowe.
Despite the win. John Gibbons talked about his teams lack of offence. "I'm frustrated, we're all frustrated," said Toronto manager John Gibbons, referring to the low offensive output of late. "But we can hit. In reality, when they pitch good against you, just like we did against them, that shuts down offenses. That's just a fact."
Matt Stairs also talked about the lack of run support for the pitchers. "Our pitching has been doing an outstanding job the last month," Stairs said. "We've been going through some rough times, and our offense hasn't really been stepping up to the plate -- no pun intended. I think we've been getting that one big hit, though. We've been getting clutch hits."
He also talked about the difficulty of hitting off Derek Lowe, the pitcher for Los Angeles. "Whenever Derek takes the mound, you hope to God he makes a mistake. He's been like that his whole career," Stairs said. "I was very fortunate he threw me a first-pitch slider for a ball and came back with a sinker that stayed up in the zone a little bit."
The rubber match of this series goes today at 4:10pm.
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