Toronto Blue Jays Swept at Home by Boston Red Sox

The Boston Red Sox look unstoppable and are simply playing in a league of its own at the moment.

Fresh off sweeping the New York Yankees in New York, Boston duplicated the feat by sweeping the Toronto Blue Jays in three straight at the Rogers Centre in Toronto. Unlike the series with the Yankees where the score was relatively close, Boston absolutely dominated Toronto in every facet of the game over the three contests. It was as though men were playing with the boys as the Jays were simply no match for the Beantowners, dropping the series finale 14-1 in front of 30,364 fans.

“I think the biggest thing is I’m glad to see them leave town,” said Jays Manager John Farrell. “Against a lineup deep and as hot as they are it was a tall order for everybody the past two days.”

“I think the numbers on the scoreboard indicate that they were swinging the bat as good as they have at any point in time in the year. You combine patience, selectivity, power, speed – that’s an explosive, very deep and diverse offence and we saw it for 18 innings the last two days.”

Everyone expected the Red Sox to be very good this year but after a poor 0-6 start to the season, everyone jumped on them and heaped on negative criticism. Since mid-April, Boston has had the best record in baseball going 36-16. The team has now won nine straight games and is the hottest team in baseball while owning the best record in the American League.

The Blue Jays (32-34) just could not keep the Red Sox (39-26) off the board and were outscored 35-6 in the series. The Red Sox bats racked up 15 hits alone on Jays pitchers in a game that got out of hand in the fifth inning. Up and down the Boston lineup every player called upon contributed in a total team effort led by outstanding pitching by Clay Buchholz, John Lackey and Jon Lester.

For the Jays, despite being blown out for the second consecutive day, there was at least one bright spot as Jose Bautista found his swing again by hitting his 21st homerun of the season. It wasn’t pretty as his normal homeruns as it just bounced off the top of the wall in centre field and then bounced up and back down onto the field. It looked as though it was going to be just a double, but then the second base umpire signaled it a homerun.

The long ball should give the right fielder some confidence to break out of his slump. He had gone 13 games without a long ball and once again took over top spot in the majors, just ahead of the Yankees’ Curtis Granderson who has 20.

“I’m seriously not making the season to be all about myself hitting homeruns,” said Bautista after the game. “I’m trying to win games and we didn’t get it done today. So the fact that I got a homerun – it would have been a single – same difference, we only scored one run today. Obviously it was not enough.”

“It seemed like they were doing everything good. They were pitching great, they got more than ten hits in every game, scored a lot of runs and every time we seemed to hit a ball that we could get something started with they went and made a great play on defence. Tough series, but they played great. We can’t dwell on it too much, it was just three games. It’s a long season we still have plenty of time, we just got to go back to doing what we’re capable of doing.”

Bautista felt that his swing was better on the day but admitted that he’s still not quite happy with it just yet.

“It’s getting better but it’s a day-to-day thing,” said the right fielder. Some days you feel like you do a lot of improvement and then the next day you might feel like you take a step backward. Just looking for that consistency and I’m still not quite there yet but it felt a lot better today.”

“You have a game plan and when the game starts it’s totally different. These are things you work on in batting practice and in the cage and when the game starts you’re out there competing and trying to get the job done.”

After a decent bounce-back effort against Kansas City in his last start, Kyle Drabek (4-5) was ripped apart by Boston hitters on Sunday afternoon. After giving up a solo homerun to Adrian Gonzalez in the first inning and two more runs in the third, Drabek completely unraveled in the fifth inning. He was pulled in the fifth after giving up a two-run homerun to Dustin Pedroia and then a three-run line-drive long ball to David Ortiz in the inning. The right-hander lasted just 4 innings giving up seven hits and eight runs, including the three homeruns.

Drabek was once again visibly frustrated during and after the game.

 “Yeah, I’m very frustrated right now,” said Drabek. “I couldn’t tell you the last time, the real quality game I’ve had. It’s frustrating walking people and giving up hits and not giving your team a chance to win.”

“I’m sure other people have gone through stretches like this, but for me my mind is fine, just getting frustrated that I haven’t helped the team out lately.”

Farrell has seen Drabek improve his control over his emotions but admitted his pitcher is still getting frustrated at times when he falls behind in the count.

“One thing we’ve seen is the competitive nature that he is trying to harness the emotions and not let that come into his play, in particular from pitch to pitch,” said Farrell. “When he’s missed the fastball to fall behind in the count you can see some frustration growing at times. He’d regroup to make a pitch and get out of the inning, but their lineup was relentless and kept coming at him.”

The pitcher continued to struggle with his control and found himself getting behind the count which led to four walks and the homeruns. Despite the bad outing, his focus is quickly shifting to his next start.

“I might be hard on myself, but when you’re still not improving on certain areas that I want to improve, it’s hard,” added Drabek. “I just haven’t been able to take what I do in the pen out on the mound and that’s what I need to do.”

“Once the game is over, it’s over. There’s a new game in five days and I’m just set to work on whatever I need to work on and that next start is a new start.”

Boston tallied another run off reliever Luis Perez before the fifth inning ended. The Red Sox bats kept on slugging away in the sixth inning as well by adding three more runs to increase the lead to 12-1 and turn the game into an official blowout. Then to add insult to injury, Boston scored two more in the top of the ninth to close out the scoring.

Lester (9-2), on the other hand, was outstanding on the mound for the Red Sox and picked up his AL leading ninth victory of the season. His command was unbelievable as he threw 68 of his 102 pitches for strikes, striking out eight and only issuing a single walk. He lasted eight innings giving up just two hits and one run with the only blemish of his day being the solo homerun to Bautista.

“He was looking real well using every pitch he has throwing strikes,” said Bautista. “When he’s going like that and he’s hitting both sides of the plate, it’s tough. He’s got a lot of weapons to put you out with and he certainly did a great job today.”

The Jays will have one day off before continuing its homestand by opening a three game set with the visiting Baltimore Orioles. The off-day should give all the Jays the chance to forget about the dreadful series with Boston and come back fresh against Baltimore on Tuesday night.

“Take the day off, take some time off, get your mind off the game and come back Tuesday and just try to get back on the winning side,” said Bautista. “Hopefully we can take advantage of the substitute pitcher Tuesday on the Orioles, get back on track and get the offence rolling a little bit.”

The Orioles have yet to name its starter for the first game but Carlos Villanueva (4-0) will take the hill for the Jays.Farrell hopes his starters will have better efforts and go deeper into games in order to give the bullpen a much deserved rest.

“With tomorrows off day, it will give us the chance to regroup before we start up with Baltimore on Tuesday,” said Farrell. “With Carlos (Villanueva) and Ricky (Romero) going in the first two games, both have been pretty consistent as far as going deep into the game. We’ve taxed the bullpen the past two days – that goes without saying. More innings out of the rotation are clearly needed.”