TORONTO - Ricky Romero pitched eight scoreless innings and Rod Barajas, Adam Lind and Scott Rolen hit solo homer runs on Wednesday as the Toronto Blue Jays ended a four-game losing string with a 5-0 Canada Day victory over the Tampa Bay Rays.
With Barajas catching and also hitting a seventh-inning home run, the left-handed rookie Romero (6-3) held the Rays, who had won seven in a row, to four hits and four walks while striking out seven before a Rogers Centre crowd of 30,533.
Jason Frasor came in for the ninth and struck out three and gave up a walk.
James Shields (6-6) allowed seven hits and five runs (four earned) in 7 1/3 innings to take the loss. He left the game with one out in the eighth after Lind hit his 16th homer and Rolen followed with his sixth. Rolen also had a single for a career-high 19-game hit string.
Toronto led for the first time in the series when Marco Scutaro broke a 0-for-17 stretch with a double in the third to score Jose Bautista who was at first after a two-out infield single to shortstop.
The Blue Jays scored again in the fourth after Lind led off with a double. He scored with one out when Lyle Overbay's hard shot on a 1-0 changeup went between the legs of first baseman Carlos Pena for a two-base error.
Kevin Millar, who was the designated hitter despite a .185 batting average over his previous 21 games, flew out weakly to left and Alex Rios walked. But the inning died on Barajas's grounder with the Blue Jays leading 2-0.
Romero helped himself by picking off B.J. Upton after a leadoff walk in the first.
He also caught Ben Zobrist on an attempted steal in the fourth.
Zobrist also doubled in the second and had the only two Rays hits until Carl Crawford led off the seventh with a single.
After Evan Longoria's fly out to centre, Pena singled to centre and Rios had an all-too-frequent brain cramp for him. He threw to third where he had no chance of catching the swift Crawford and that allowed Pena to take second on the throw.
A four-pitch walk to Zobrist loaded the bases and Pat Burrell co-operated by hitting a grounder to short for the inning-ending double play.
In the bottom of the seventh Barajas hit his eighth homer of the season on an 0-2 curveball, a drive go left to put Toronto ahead 3-0.
Jason Bartlett led off the eighth with a walk and was safe at second on Scutaro's error and Gabe Kapler's grounder to second. Scutaro juggled the feed from Aaron Hill and then took a tumble as he crossed the bag to leave runners at first and second with no one out.
But Scutaro received quick redemption when he caught pinch-hitter Willy Aybar's line drive and doubled up Bartlett who had strayed too far off second. Romero finished the inning on Crawford's long fly to right despite giving up another walk.
NOTES: Vernon Wells did not start Wednesday and Adam Lind was moved into his third spot in the lineup and Alex Rios moving to centre from right field where Jose Bautista started. Wells came in as a defensive replacement in the ninth. ...The Blue Jays have Thursday off before playing four afternoon games against the Yankees in New York. ...Left-hander Brian Tallet (5-5, 4.47 earned-run average) will start Friday for the Blue Jays against A.J. Burnett (6-4, 3.93 ERA); Roy Halladay (10-2, 2.56 ERA) starts Saturday against Chien-Ming Wang (1-6, 10.06 ERA); Scott Richmond (6-5, 3.69 ERA) starts Sunday against Joba Chamberlain (4-2, 3.89 ERA) and Romero will pitch Monday against left-hander Andy Pettitte (7-3, 4.38 ERA).
