Tampa Bay 12, Toronto 1
When: 7:10 PM ET, Friday, September 21, 2012
Where: Tropicana Field, St. Petersburg, Florida
Temperature:
Indoors
Umpires:
Home -
Tony Randazzo, 1B -
Todd Tichenor, 2B -
Bob Davidson, 3B -
Brian Gorman
Attendance:
14187
By SportsDirect Inc.
Rays 12, Blue Jays 1: Ben Zobrist and Jose Molina homered in support of James Shields, who tossed seven shutout innings to help Tampa Bay rout visiting Toronto in the opener of a three-game series.
Luke Scott laced a pair of two-run doubles and Carlos Pena added a two-run triple for the Rays, who kept pace in the American League wild-card race. Tampa Bay pulled within 4 1/2 games of Oakland for the second wild-card spot after the Athletics dropped a 2-1 decision in 10 innings to the New York Yankees on Friday.
Shields (15-9) struck out nine and walked one, allowing six hits. He was staked to an early lead thanks to Zobrist's two-out homer in the first and a four-run second, which was capped by Molina's career-best seventh home run.
The Rays rocked starter Carlos Villanueva (7-6) for seven runs on eight hits in 2 1/3 innings.
Tampa Bay has won 12 of 16 meetings this season, including six straight at Tropicana Field.
GAME NOTEBOOK: With Shields' third strikeout of the game, the Rays broke the 2001 Yankees' American League record for strikeouts in a season. The previous record was 1,266. The 2003 Cubs hold the major-league mark with 1,404. … Shields has 202 strikeouts, making him the first player in Rays' history with back-to-back seasons of 200 or more. … Blue Jays SS Yunel Escobar was held out of the lineup despite being eligible to return from his three-game suspension for having a homophobic slur written in his eye black during Sunday's game.
Top Game Performances
Starting Pitchers
| Toronto |
|
Tampa Bay |
|
Carlos Villanueva |
Player |
James Shields |
|
Loss |
W/L |
Win |
|
2.1 |
IP |
7.0 |
|
0 |
Strikeouts |
9 |
|
8 |
Hits |
6 |
|
27.00 |
ERA |
0.00 |
Hitting
| Toronto |
|
Tampa Bay |
|
Colby Rasmus | Player |
Jeff Keppinger |
|
2 |
Hits |
3 |
|
0 |
RBI |
1 |
|
0 |
HR |
0 |
|
2 |
TB |
3 |
|
.500 |
Avg |
1.000 |
Team Stats Summary
| Team |
Hits |
HR |
TB |
Avg |
LOB |
K |
RBI |
BB |
SB |
Errors |
| Toronto
|
9 |
0 |
10 |
.257 |
18 |
11 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
| Tampa Bay
|
16 |
2 |
30 |
.410 |
17 |
5 |
12 |
5 |
0 |
0 |
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