[News] Janssen, Jays can't preserve late lead

看板Blue_Jays作者ian055211時間18年前 (2007/06/22 15:33)推噓1(1推 0噓 0→)

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TORONTO -- Casey Janssen carried the weight of percentages with him when he took the mound for the Blue Jays on Thursday night. The young pitcher has been one of the big league's best bullpen options this year, so the odds were inevitably piling up on the wrong side of the scale. Janssen's impressive campaign reached an unfortunate tipping point against the Dodgers, who battered the setup man for six runs in the eighth inning. Janssen left the mound to an onslaught of jeers from the home crowd, and his struggles sent Toronto reeling to an 8-4 loss. "I told him, 'Keep your head up. Don't listen to those boos,'" Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said, recalling the message he delivered to Janssen after his outing. "If anybody's been paying attention, Janssen's been one of the best relievers in baseball. That's very rare. It's unfortunate, but it happened." It marked the first time this season that Janssen allowed more than one run in any appearance, and he'd only allowed runs in four of his previous 31 games. In fact, the 0.95 ERA that Janssen carried before Thursday's lapse ranked first in the Majors among the 129 relievers with at least 25 innings. Janssen's 38 relief innings for the Blue Jays (34-37) ranked 11th in the big leagues before his latest outing, which caused his season ERA to balloon to 2.37. The right-hander was unable to retire any of the six batters he faced, all of whom crossed the plate by the time the fateful frame finally came to an end. "I was terrible," said Janssen, who made no excuses for his performance. "You never want to give it up. This was a big game for us. We had the lead with five outs to go, and I couldn't do it." The Jays were clinging to a 3-2 lead in the eighth, when left-hander Scott Downs, who provided 1 1/3 scoreless innings of relief, retired Juan Pierre on a grounder back to the mound to lead things off. That's when Gibbons turned to Janssen (2-1), who has been successfully bridging the gap to closer Jeremy Accardo. First baseman Nomar Garciaparra promptly sliced the first pitch he saw into right field for a one-out single for the Dodgers (41-31). Janssen's next pitch was to Jeff Kent, who sent the offering bouncing off the top of the right-field wall for a double. The pitcher's ability to pepper the strike zone actually worked against him. "I throw strikes," said Janssen, who has just seven walks this season. "So, for them to be aggressive is probably the right game plan. Sometimes it works, but tonight it didn't." Considering the situation, the Blue Jays opted to have Janssen intentionally walk veteran Luis Gonzalez to load the bases. The strategy would at least provide an opportunity for the 25-year-old pitcher to induce an inning-ending double play. The risk was that Dodgers catcher Russell Martin -- L.A.'s leader with 45 RBIs -- was next to the plate. "Martin is a good little player," Gibbons said. "He's a guy you hate to walk a guy to get to him. But the guy ahead of him has been one of the best hitters in baseball for a number of years, too. You're in a jam there." Martin swung the game back in the Dodgers' favor by sending a 1-1 pitch from Janssen bouncing down the right-field line for a two-run double. The next four Los Angeles hitters followed with run-scoring hits, including two off reliever Jason Frasor that added two more runs to Janssen's line. The Dodgers' late rally erased the work of Jays starter Shaun Marcum, who allowed just two runs on three hits in six innings and was in line for his fourth straight win as a starter. His lone mistake came to Kent in the sixth, when the Dodgers second baseman belted a two-run home run to knot the score at 2. The Blue Jays, who received a two-run blast from Aaron Hill in the second inning, regained the lead on a sacrifice fly by Gregg Zaun in the sixth. Zaun added another sac fly in the eighth, but the damage done to Janssen proved too excessive to overcome. "I couldn't stop it. I didn't have an answer," Janssen said. "[Marcum] pitched great, and Downsy pitched good. Our offense executed when we needed to, to get the lead late. I just wasn't there tonight." Odds are, Janssen will be able to rebound. "We're not worried about him," Gibbons said. "All I know is he's had a great year to this point. He's going to pick right up where he left off." -- ※ 發信站: 批踢踢實業坊(ptt.cc) ◆ From: 125.225.101.141