Blue Jays-Phillies Preview

Donaldson had 3 hits, a walk and reached on an error.

With those two deals, Anthopoulos was basically saying it’s now or never for the Blue Jays, who haven’t made the playoffs since 1993, the year they won their second consecutive World Series championship.

“I wish I could have a lot of these nights”, he said. I thought my stuff was better than my last four outings. It’s just one of those bad starts where I felt like I was making my pitches.

Blanco scored the Phillies’ first run on a sacrifice fly lifted by Jeff Francoeur. Such was insufficient, though, for the Blue Jays to make the tough postseason ballot. Utley didn’t play, but got a standing ovation after the game and he tipped his cap to the crowd.

Along with Couture, you can count Sharks teammate Joel Ward, Drew Doughty of the Los Angeles Kings and Teddy Purcell of the Edmonton Oilers among the hockey players who are also Blue Jays fans.

“Morgan was fantastic tonight”, Phillies interim manager Pete Mackanin said. “We don’t do enough of it”. After Rodriguez’s home run, the Yankees added insurance runs with nobody out in the eighth on a two-run double by Headley and a run-scoring single by Jacoby Ellsbury. Third baseman Maikel Franco remains out with that wrist injury and in fact this afternoon he was placed on the 15-day disabled list.

“It’s no fun” playing under NL rules, Buehrle said. “Every time I come up I expect to not only have a good at-bat, but to help my team win”.

On this day, they didn’t.

The left-hander’s four complete games are two more than he had in his previous four seasons combined and one shy of his career high set in 2002 with the Chicago White Sox.

Morgan (4-4), had success against one of the league’s most potent offenses.

Lowe’s first appearance where he allowed three runs and took a loss against the Kansas City Royals may not have been pretty, but since that ugly appearance he’s pitched four straight scoreless appearances and become another solid arm for the clubs bullpen.

Josh Donaldson, 3B, at Phi (Morgan), $23: He’s up to 33 homers and 91 RBI after going yard twice Tuesday and is an MVP candidate. Iwakuma (5-2) gave up a hit to Texas’ second batter, a single by Shin-Soo Choo.

Since that time, he had gone 4-0 with two no-decisions and had not allowed more than three runs in any of the starts.

In the first inning, with Andres Blanco at first for the Phillies, Odubel Herrera lashed a line drive into right field toward Toronto’s Jose Bautista.

“It was good to be out there and get that first hit out of the way”, he said. 9 hits, majority very hard hit balls, 2 walks and 2 strikeouts.

The Blue Jays catcher says he must do better at the plate.

Philadelphia Phillies’ Cesar Hernandez (16) is tagged out by… Roberto Osuna pitched the ninth for his 14th save in 15 chances.

Toronto police are warning sports fans to watch out for fake Blue Jays tickets.

The usually dependable lefty was just not his normal self, getting tagged early and often as the Phillies raced into a 4-0 lead through three innings.