Toronto Star
Rangers deep six Blue Jays
By Mark Zwolinksi
The Jays hit rock bottom yesterday, extending their losing skid to six games, a sorry streak that not only matches a franchise mark for futility on a road trip, but leaves them in last place in the AL East, 7 1/2 games behind the front-running Red Sox.
Boston will be in Toronto for a three-game set beginning tomorrow night and the Jays' needs are overwhelming.
J.P. trifling with truth not nice for Jays' fans
By Garth Wollsey
His motivation, he said, was altruistic, to protect his apparently sensitive player from the media hounds. He made his admission on his weekly radio show and has since tried to justify his words. Among his statements:
# "It was his elbow that was bothering him. So we said it was his back so we could have a bit more time. There are a lot of things that happen that if you let it play out it ends up solving itself. If you bring attention to it, then a lot is made out of things that don't end up being a big deal."
# "We didn't want the media to bother Ryan every day asking him, `How's your elbow? How are you feeling? Are you going to throw today? Are you feeling good?'"
# "There's a lot of things we don't tell the media, because the media doesn't need to know it and the fans don't need to know it. They're not lies if we know the truth."
Is there something more to the story, something that is not being said? When contacted by phone yesterday and told that the story seems not to be going away, that he was taking a beating from various and sundry critics, Ricciardi said: "It's going to go away, because we have no comment about it. We're done talking about it. ... There's nothing to clear the air about. We're done."
Toronto Sun
Jays skid takes on a sixth sense
By Mike Rutsey
By dropping a 3-2 decision to the Rangers yesterday, the Jays went 0-6 on a six-game trip for just the second time in their history. The first occurred Sept. 3-9, 1979, when they visited Baltimore and Cleveland
This time around, they split the defeats between Cleveland and Arlington, two cities where they've combined to go a horrid 4-27 since 2004.
"It wasn't real successful, I'll put it that way," manager John Gibbons said of the trip.
Jays missing their leadoff man
By Mike Rutsey
RF Alex Rios has led of in 18 games since Johnson's injury but Rios, a power hitter who seldom walks, wasn't getting on base enough. He also has had rookie Adam Lind bat leadoff three times as well as Aaron Hill. The Hill experiment has been a disaster as the second baseman, who was hitting .311 when batting elsewhere, has gone 0-for-13 atop the order to drop his average to .277.
"I see Alex getting back up there," Gibbons said of the leadoff spot. "I'm just trying to change it up (and get something going), that's all."
Globe & Mail
Rangers 3, Blue Jays 2
By Robert Macleod
IMPRESSED: A.J. Burnett deserved better in this one, striking out a season-high nine batters and allowing seven Texas hits over 7.2 innings. Unfortunately for Burnett, three of those hits were first-pitch solo home runs.
UNIMPRESSED: The Toronto offence continues to be missing in action, accounting for just five hits off Texas pitching. Vernon Wells, who is coming back after an illness, is still not right, going 0-for-4, matching the effort of first baseman Lyle Overbay and Aaron Hill, who can
