Very Much Capable of Doing

I don't think there are superlatives expressive enough to describe just how boss Ricky Romero was last night. It is often said that a pitcher's mettle is measured not when he is dominating, but rather in the way he adapts and overcomes when he is struggling. Romero was dominant in all 8 innings he pitched, except for the first 3 batters in the 2nd. He walked Roy Halladay's evil half-brother Ben Zobrist, plunked Casey Kotchman and then walked BJ "Not Justin" Upton to load the bases, with no one out.

Then Ricky got real. He struck out Matt Joyce swinging, Kelly Shoppach had a 2-0 count before swinging at 3 straight pitches and then Romero got Sean Rodriguez to ground out. Miraculously, Romero not only got out of the inning without giving up a run, he got out of the inning without giving up a hit. The no hit shut out was erased in one shot from Jennings in the bottom of the 6th.

The other miracle was that the Jays actually managed to get a win facing David Price, who has owned them in the past. His record was 8-0 career vs the Jays, with an ERA under 3.

“It's fun pitching against him,” Romero said. “We're good friends. We have talked about it. It was definitely fun going out there to battle against him and I'm happy we came out in front.”

As fantastic as Romero was, it also illustrates how anemic the Rays' offense has become. The Rays have scored once while Price has been on the mound during his last three starts. I'm sorry, that's just mean.

Romero got offense in the form of a Bautista "Shut up, I'm fine" homer in the 4th, his 32nd. As John Farrell put it, “It was good to see Jose get a 2-0 fastball and do what he's very much capable of doing." Escobar also hit a solo shot.

The win brings the Jays a half game back of Tampa for 3rd in the AL East. And as a Getting Blanked comment puts it, "if Morrow puts it together and someone burns down Fenway park… playoffs baby!" Now, before we collect matches and some sort accelerant, we should remember that Boston could probably convince Bud Selig to let them play in whatever Boston area park they choose, because they are, after all, a gift to Major League Baseball.

There was a strange incident where Mike Wilner announced over Twitter that Jesse Litsch had been traded to the Reds and the news spread like wildfire for about 10 minutes. This went on until people started investigating and discovered that it was started by a fake account. So Rojo is not a Red. He's still here to give us fits.

What a weird player to fake trade.