TORONTO - The year of the pitcher across the majors has been the year of the longball for the Toronto Blue Jays, who surely found the zenith of their season-long air show with an eight home run performance over the weekend.

For some perspective, Saturday's assault of shellshocked starter James Shields and the Tampa Bay Rays was just the 20th time a big-league team has hit eight or more home runs in a single game, according to Elias Sports Bureau, and was two short of the record 10 the Blue Jays established against Baltimore on Sept. 14, 1987.

Consider, too, that there have been just 20 perfect games thrown in the majors.

Yet the fireworks were overshadowed by the excitement over prospect J.P. Arencibia's stunning two-homer, four-hit debut in the 17-11 win, and then nearly completely forgotten as Brandon Morrow came within an out of the franchise's second no-hitter in Sunday's 1-0 win.

The rarity of the power display, however, made it just as memorable as the efforts by Arencibia and Morrow, even if what was somewhat lost in the other buzz.

"I've never seen anything like that," marvelled Jose Bautista, whose major-league best 34th home was No. 5 on Saturday for the Blue Jays.

Added Lyle Overbay, whose 13th of the year was the capper: "We were awfully close to (the record) but you're still pretty far away from it on the same token. Two home runs to tie it, takes some good luck more than anything. But it's what we've been doing all year, hitting homers."

Of that there is no doubt.

The Blue Jays now have 175 home runs, tops in the majors, a full 28 ahead of the Boston Red Sox, who are in Toronto for the start of a three-game series Tuesday night.

It's come to the point where teams concede that the Blue Jays are going to burn them with the longball, and focus more on damage control. That's exactly what Rays manager Joe Maddon was musing about Friday afternoon, shortly before his team's lost weekend in Toronto began.

"That's who they are, that's their nature," said Maddon. "You try to limit it as much as you possibly can, limit the number of people who are on base.

"That's your best recourse."

In that Maddon is bang on, as despite leading the majors in home runs, the Blue Jays were just ninth in runs before Monday's play at 527. The reason for that is simple: they rank 24th with a .251 batting average and 27th with a .314 on-base percentage, meaning they rarely go deep with runners on.

Of their 175 home runs, 99 were solo shots, 57 were two-run blasts, 17 were three-run drives, and two were grand slams.

So damage control is possible, as the Arizona Diamondbacks proved on May 21, when they gave up six solo shots to the Blue Jays and still won, 8-6.

"They're going to hit some home runs against us, no question," said Maddon. "But then again, if we can locate our fastball like we want to, then we should get a lot of quick outs, which permits our starters to pitch deep into the game.

"My philosophy is always for us to pitch to our strengths first ... I think the biggest thing with them is to be able to throw something other than the fastball in a fastball count for a strike."

Neither Shields, who tied a modern-day record by allowing six homers Saturday, nor reliever Dale Thayer, who gave up the final two, could do that, making them easy pickings for the Blue Jays, who are on pace for 255 bombs this season.

That would break the club record of 244 set in 2000, when they led the American League.

Whether or not they break that mark, a question the front office will need to wrestle with in the off-season is would a diversified offence be more effective than one so dependent on power.

Until then, pitching staffs around the AL should remain on alert.

"They're an interesting ball club, a lot of their success has been derived from the home run, there's no question about that," said Maddon. "They're not a big base-stealing team, they're not a hit-and-run team, so a lot of their offence is generated through the longball.

"They have guys who work good at-bats, other guys are free swingers. They ain't going to change now."

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MORE HR STATS: While big-league teams have only hit eight or more home runs in a game 20 times, the majority of such onslaughts have occurred over the past 15 seasons, according to Elias Sports Bureau.

It happened just eight times through the 1995 season, but 12 times since, and nine of those from 2000 on. The most recent team to hit eight home runs in a game was the New York Yankees on July 31, 2007, in a 16-3 clubbing of the visiting Chicago White Sox.

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RED SOX BLUES: The Blue Jays (59-52) take a 2-7 mark against the Red Sox (63-49) this season into Tuesday's series opener when Ricky Romero (9-7, 3.37) goes against Daisuke Matsuzaka (8-3, 3.96).

The weekend sweep of the Rays left them 6-6 against the AL wild card leaders, and they're now 5-4 against the New York Yankees after a slow start versus the AL East leaders.

And at seven games over .500, they're two wins away from matching their high-point of nine games over the break-even point last reached June 5.

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DIVISION VS WILD CARD: It's looking like the American League East will go down to the wire between the New York Yankees, the current leaders, and the Tampa Bay Rays, who lead the wild card race.

Joe Maddon was a coach with the Angels when they won the 2002 World Series as a wild card team and went to the World Series as manager of the Rays in 2008 after winning the AL East crown.

Does it matter which way a team gets into the playoffs?

"It could matter," said Maddon. "If you have the best record it leads us to have home-field advantage, that really matters.

"But for me, it's enough reward to say you've won the American League East, that in and of itself to me really says a lot, and to look at the banner in our ball park."

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IT'S IN THE EYES: The biggest issue Toronto Blue Jays catching prospect J.P. Arencibia had during a down season in 2009 was an astigmatism in his eyes that hampered his vision.

He tried both contacts and glasses, neither of which helped, and had to wait until the off-season for corrective surgery to take care of the problem. The main difference on the field, he says, is that he can now pick up the spin on the ball out of the pitchers hand, something he couldn't see last year.

"It's not that you guess at the plate, you get fooled a lot more," he said. "If the fastball came out of the same plane as his breaking ball, it made it tough to see, that was the hardest part, being able to pick up the spin. I was never guessing, but I would think it was a fastball and I'd swing at it and it was a breaking ball."

While his bat is his meal-ticket to the majors, his defence will help keep him up. Arencibia feels he's improved plenty on that front, too.

"I've been a lot better than I've ever been before," he said. "I feel like people know I can play defence at a high level, and I'm just waiting for my opportunity to show I'm a defensive guy as well as an offensive guy.

"I've been confident in my game-calling ability, just because I've always been an offensive minded guy, so I kind of know when guys are cheating or when guys are looking for certain things, because I've been there a lot.

"As far as I know, pitchers have always enjoyed throwing to me and I feel like I've always worked well with them."

He and Travis Snider have batted 3-4 at several stops in the minors on their way to Toronto, and often let themselves dream big. It started to feel real when they traded high-fives at home plate after Arencibia's first homer Saturday.

"We've been in that situation high-fiving each other at the plate quite a bit and to be able to do it on this stage is unbelievable, it was a great feeling," said Arencibia. "We've talked about doing big things and I don't want to get carried away with myself, but we strive to be great and hopefully one day we can be a big part of success in Toronto."

Added Snider: "We've talked about this day for a long time. Being two guys the organization has put a lot of trust in and given us a lot of opportunities to be where we are right now, we don't take that for granted, that's for sure."

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FOUL TIPS: Blue Jays GM Alex Anthopoulos says he and his staff have yet to begin reviewing their minor-league affiliate plans for 2011. Their contracts with triple-A Las Vegas and single-A clubs Auburn and Lansing are up. The Blue Jays initially weren't happy when they ended up in Vegas two years ago, but Anthopoulos made it sound like he could live with it if they stayed there. "Geographically it's not ideal ... but you're never going to find a perfect arrangement," he said. "With respect to our agreement ... those are things we're going to have to address and it's on our list. But we don't have a bad thing to say about Las Vegas." The Blue Jays are also looking to add another single-A club. ... With the deadline for signing draft picks looming next weekend, it's going to be a busy week of negotiating for big-league teams. Like many, Anthopoulos would like to see the deadline moved up. "I think everybody in the game would prefer an earlier date," he said. "I don't think there's any benefit to having it as late as it is." Talks with first-rounder Deck McGuire haven't gotten serious yet as both sides wait for other signings to come in, but don't expect the Blue Jays to budge from their price. If they don't sign McGuire, chosen 11th overall, they get the 12th pick next year. "We're not going to deviate from what we feel the value of the player is, especially in the first three rounds when we can get the draft pick back," said Anthopoulos. "That's just an organizational policy, because it impacts everything we do. We have to be able to set values on players and if they're not met or they don't line up, we have to be prepared to walk away." ... Top pitching prospects Zack Stewart and Kyle Drabek will skip upcoming starts at double-A New Hampshire to keep their innings down.