TORONTO – Scoreboard watching is a typical by-product of meaningful September baseball, but both R.A. Dickey and Adam Lind stress the importance of keeping the focus close to home.
"Inside the clubhouse, we have to just worry about ourselves," Dickey said. "You might glance up there every once in a while, but for us every game is important. That’s one of the ways you combat putting too much pressure on yourself. How to operate in games where there is quote/unquote pressure is to treat every game the same no matter what in your mind. That’s what we try to do."
Added Lind: "I don’t want to start thinking about the race because then I start thinking about too much and put too much pressure on myself. You just take it at-bat to at-bat."
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MILESTONE MEN: With seven innings Saturday, R.A. Dickey is now 3.1 innings away from 200 while Mark Buehrle is 18 away from the milestone, a luxury John Gibbons calls "huge because you can almost pencil that in." Like Buehrle, Dickey is also sprinting to the finish with wins in his past four decisions and quality starts in six of last seven outings.
"I always try to work hard to be durable and consistent and trustworthy," Dickey said. "When I was signed to come over here, I never claimed to be Clayton Kershaw or some big ace, I was a piece of the puzzle and part of that is going deep and giving our team a chance to win every time I take the ball, that’s my goal. Usually that’s manifested in a quality start, so sure, that’s important. At the same time, I don’t feel like I’ve been doing anything much different than I did early in the season. We’re just scoring more runs in some games I’ve been pitching in, for one, and two, I feel strong. I certainly haven’t (regressed) in the way that I feel. (Trainer) George Poulis has done a good job of reminding me to back off. I’ve logged a lot of innings the last few years, so that’s part of the strategy of surviving a full season and throwing 200 innings consistently, I’m sure Mark will tell you the same thing. The more bullets you save during the week, probably the stronger you’re going to be on gameday."
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USING THE BENCH: Looking for some offence Friday night, Blue Jays manager John Gibbons turned to Colby Rasmus, which is understandable, and with Munenori Kawasaki to hit off the bench in the seventh inning. Meanwhile Dan Johnson, a pinch-hitting specialist with some pop, remains without an at-bat since his return from the DL at the start of the month.
"I know you’re talking about a possible home run, that’s hard to do, pinch-hit home runs," Gibbons said when asked about Kawasaki over Johnson. "Saki’s kind of been our igniter; he gets things going with maybe a single or rare double kind of thing. … I haven’t forgotten about (Johnson). He hasn’t gotten any action; there are some other guys we’re going to first right now. We went to the guy we normally go to and he generally makes good things happen."
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EXTRA DAYS OF REST: The primary motivation in switching Mark Buehrle to Sunday and pushing back Marcus Stroman to Monday was to give the rookie right-hander an extra day of rest, something the Blue Jays have tried to do all season for him and Drew Hutchison. Next year, though, the gloves may be off in that regard.
"By then they should be over the hump maybe," Gibbons said. "It depends on how the season starts, what you have available down there, if you want to get somebody in there. You really don’t know but we’ve been pretty fortunate. After (Brandon) Morrow went down, we’ve basically been running with those five all year long."
The Blue Jays have used just eight starters. The extra days of rest have "helped this year and it can be a wise thing, but I don’t think it’s necessary," Gibbons said.
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ESCOBAR PEPPERED: After the game, an object believed to be a red pepper was thrown from the stands at Rays shortstop and former Blue Jay Yunel Escobar.
"Something like that, that just speaks to an idiot," Rays manager Joe Maddon said. "That’s all. There’s idiocy everywhere. No particular area is immune to idiocy."
