St. Petersburg, FL - Former Devil Rays bat boy Jesse Litsch pitched 6 2/3 shutout innings, as the Toronto Blue Jays blanked Tampa Bay, 2-0, in the middle contest of a three-game set at Tropicana Field.
Litsch (4-4), a Tampa Bay native, scattered seven hits to notch his third win in his last four starts.
Scott Downs pitched 1 1/3 perfect innings and Jeremy Accardo worked around trouble in the ninth to record his 18th save of the season.
Delmon Young led off the inning with a single. After Brendan Harris grounded into a force out at second, Jonny Gomes walked. Accardo, though, got Josh Paul to ground into a force out and pinch-hitter Josh Wilson to fly out.
Vernon Wells hit an RBI double and scored a run for the Blue Jays, who have won two of three.
Young collected three hits for the Devil Rays, who lost for the ninth time in their last 11 games.
Tampa Bay starter Edwin Jackson (2-11) was the hard-luck loser after giving up just one unearned run on five hits through six innings. The right-hander struck out five and walked one.
Toronto got on the board in the second as Wells led off the inning and reached second on a fielding error by Devil Rays shortstop Ben Zobrist.
A Jackson wild pitch allowed Wells to go to third, and Matt Stairs’ single to left gave Toronto the lead.
In the home half of the second, Young and Harris hit back-to-back, one-out singles, but Litsch retired both Gomes and Paul on fly balls to end the threat.
The Devil Rays then loaded the bases with one out in the third on a pair of singles and a walk. However, Blue Jays second baseman Aaron Hill knocked down Carlos Pena’s line drive before starting a 4-6-3 double play to end the inning.
Wells gave the Blue Jays an insurance run in the eighth with a two-out RBI double that deflected off the glove of Young in right field.
Game Notes
Jackson lowered his ERA from 7.00 to 6.56…In the fifth inning, Wells made a nice catch on Akinori Iwamura’s fly ball to the warning track in center field…Attendance was 10,569.
