TORONTO - It was a lot more of the same for the Toronto Blue Jays against the Baltimore Orioles on Tuesday night -- solid starting pitching, offence to spare, and yet another victory against baseball's worst club.
Ricky Romero allowed two runs over 7 2-3 strong innings, Jose Bautista clubbed two more home runs and drove in five runs, and Vernon Wells put the game out of reach with a two-run double in the fourth in an 8-2 romp that was essentially over soon after it began.
There was little drama to entertain the crowd of 16,862 once the Blue Jays (52-49) jumped out to an early lead, but a stunning bit of elan from Yunel Escobar did, however, add some pizzazz to his team's 11th straight win over the Orioles (31-69).
The shortstop, criticized in Atlanta for his flashy play, ranged far to his left to scoop up Jake Fox's grounder in the fifth inning and, with his momentum carrying him away from the base, spun his glove behind his back and tossed the ball to Aaron Hill at second for a force out. Base-runner Felix Pie could only shake his head while Escobar broke into a wide grin, clapping his hands with glee.
The jaw-dropping display of skill in the field came on top of another strong night at the plate, as Escobar collected three hits and scored twice.
Otherwise, the game was like watching the school bully rough up the weakling again.
Romero (8-7) had little trouble with the Orioles, who touched him for a pair of runs in the eighth on Nick Markakis's RBI double and Luke Scott's sacrifice fly to make it a 6-2 game. Miguel Tejada scored on the play but Bautista gunned down Scott at third base for his AL-high ninth assist. Confused by how many outs there were in the inning, a few Blue Jays ran off the field thinking the inning was over before realizing only two were down.
Bautista restored the gap in the bottom of the eighth, when he smashed his 30th homer of the season with Fred Lewis aboard to make it 8-2. Combined with his three-run blast in the first off an overmatched Kevin Millwood (2-10), Bautista now has 75 RBIs on the season.
Lyle Overbay made it 4-0 in the third with a bases-loaded walk while Wells' double in the fourth made it 6-0.
The win for Romero was just the second in his last six outings and both have been against the Orioles.
The 11 straight victories over Baltimore is the now second-longest Toronto streak against a single opponent, two short of the club record 13 posted against the Orioles (1999-2000) and the Indians (1991-92).
Notes: The Blue Jays recalled Brad Mills from triple-A Las Vegas after the game to start Wednesday's series finale with Baltimore, with INF Mike McCoy optioned. An extra starter was needed because of Sunday's doubleheader in Detroit. The start will be a one-off, with the pitcher returned to Vegas to make way for OF Travis Snider afterwards. ... Snider is likely to join the team for the weekend series with Cleveland and his return means manager Cito Gaston will have some lineup juggling to do. Snider, Fred Lewis, Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion will also share time. "It's not going to be easy," said Gaston. "I talked about this before the season and it hasn't happened that much, to try and get guys a day off a week, it gets tough to do sometimes. We might be leaning more toward that way, rotate the guys out there." ... Gaston doesn't think his players are sweating the looming trade deadline too much. "I guess there might be but I think guys who think they might be traded, the only thing they fear is that they have to move their families, get themselves to another city," he said. "I think a lot of them learn to love this city and hate to leave it."
