Eric Hinske powers Rays past Blue Jays
Last Updated: Wednesday, May 7, 2008 | 12:39 AM ET
CBC Sports
A.J. Burnett retrieves a baseball after giving up Eric Hinske's decisive home run. (Frank Gunn/Canadian Press)Eric Hinske returned to haunt the Toronto Blue Jays on Tuesday night.
Hinske homered in the sixth inning to vault the visiting Tampa Bay Rays over the Blue Jays 5-4 before a crowd of 30,397 at the Rogers Centre.
Hinske, who played for Toronto from 2002-06, hammered his seventh homer of the season off the window of the restaurant overlooking straightaway centre field.
Akinori Iwamura had two runs batted in, and Carl Crawford and B.J. Upton drove in the other runs as the Rays (17-15) rebounded from a three-game sweep at the hands of the Boston Red Sox.
Tampa Bay was outscored 26-10 by Boston in the weekend series, and expected to struggle offensively versus the Blue Jays.
Toronto's pitching staff, as a whole, had given up just 12 runs in the previous nine games, with each starter lasting at least 6 2/3 innings in that stretch.
"We take pride in shut-down innings and I didn't have one," Toronto starter and loser A.J. Burnett said. Lyle Overbay went 2-for-4 with two RBIs for the Blue Jays (16-18), who were bidding to win six straight games for the first time since May 4-10, 2004.
David Eckstein and Scott Rolen had the other RBIs.
The Blue Jays lost two shortstops in the setback as Eckstein aggravated a right hip flexor and John McDonald, who replaced him in the fifth, rolled his right ankle and left the field on a cart.
"It was really weird," Eckstein said. "You feel bad that you had to come out because of an injury.
"You don't really like doing that in the first place. Then, to see that happen to John, I definitely feel bad for that."
Marco Scutaro handled the position the rest of the way.
"I played a lot of short the last four years in Oakland," he said. "You start playing, you get comfortable."
Tampa Bay starter Andy Sonnanstine (5-1) chalked up his fourth win in as many starts, permitting four runs on 10 hits and one walk with two strikeouts in six innings.
"I stuck with the fastball, even though there were some fastballs that got hit pretty hard," he said. "I was battling all night.
"The slider was probably the best pitch tonight. But I think I used the majority of fastballs."
Closer Troy Percival pitched a spotless ninth inning for his seventh save of the season.
Percival has yet to yield a run in 11 innings this season.
'They hit well and hit hard'
Burnett (3-3) was charged with five runs on nine hits in six innings pitched, striking out 10 and walking one.
"There are some days you're going to get away with some mistakes," he said. "But every mistake I threw tonight, they hit well and hit hard."
Burnett was overpowering at the outset, fanning five of the first six batters he faced before running into trouble in the top of the third inning.
Dioner Navarro singled, Gabe Gross walked and both runners moved into scoring position on a wild pitch for Iwamura, who singled in one run.
Crawford delivered Gross with a sacrifice fly and Upton singled in Iwamura to make it 3-0.
Toronto replied with two runs in the bottom of the third as Gregg Zaun singled and scored on Eckstein's double.
Shannon Stewart later singled to put runners on the corners for Rolen, who cashed Eckstein with a sacrifice fly to the warning track.
The Blue Jays tied it 3-3 in the fourth inning as Vernon Wells tripled and scored on a sacrifice fly from Overbay.
After the Rays regained the lead with runs in the fifth and sixth innings — the latter on Hinske's mammoth homer — Wells singled and scored on Overbay's double off the top of the outfield wall to trim it to 5-4.
"I didn't expect it to go so far," Overbay said. "When it did I was, like, 'Why couldn't it go a few more inches?'" Tampa Bay swept a three-game series from Toronto two weeks ago.
With files from the Canadian Press
