THE CANADIAN PRESS
TORONTO — John Parrish, a 30-year-old left-hander making his first start in four years, scattered four hits over six innings as the Toronto Blue Jays fended off the visiting Atlanta Braves 9-5 at the Rogers Centre on Saturday afternoon.
"(Parrish) was great, outstanding," said Jays manager Cito Gaston, whose club is now 4-4 since he took over from John Gibbons last week. "He threw strikes. He got in trouble a couple of times, but he battled through it. He pitched a great ballgame for us."
Rod Barajas and Vernon Wells hit solo home runs for Toronto, and five different players had multiple hits for the Blue Jays as they scored four runs in the sixth inning and three in the eighth to improve to 39-43 on the season.
"Today was a good day for the hitters, a good day for the pitchers everybody did a good job," Gaston said.
Atlanta scored four times in the top of the eighth to pull within a run at 6-5, but that was as close as the Braves would come. They fell to 40-42 with the loss.
"That was awesome for us to come back and put three on the board (in the bottom of the eighth), to take that momentum back and put them on their heels a little bit, that was huge for us," said Barajas, who also doubled and scored three runs. "That’s what we haven’t been doing this year."
Barajas, the Jays catcher, also had praise for Parrish.
"He gave us six solid innings. He threw strikes and he didn’t walk too many. His ability to keep them guessing, his ability to make pitches when he really needed them, that’s what you want from a guy, to throw strikes and get out of jams."
In his eighth year as a pro but making his first big-league start since July 2004 Parrish surrendered just one earned run and two walks while striking out four in front of 28,518 fans. Parrish, who previously played for Baltimore and Seattle, improved his career record to 13-12.
"I felt good," said Parrish, who was recalled Friday night from triple-A Syracuse, where he was 10-2 with a 2.74 ERA. "The confidence is there, it’s just a matter of throwing strikes."
The native of Lancaster, Pa., looked sharp from the moment he took the mound. Parrish, who sat out the entire 2006 season after undergoing Tommy John surgery, didn’t allow a Braves batsman to reach base until Gregor Blanco led off the fourth inning with a single. The next batter, Ruben Gotay, grounded into a double play to end the threat. Parrish’s lone earned run came in the fifth, when Atlanta catcher Brian McCann smacked a one-out double to the centre-field wall, knocking in Mark Teixeira from first base.
"I really didn’t have anything to lose," Parrish said. "I knew coming in what the situation was, and I just tried to forget about all that and go out there and do what I needed to do."
The Jays pitcher also got some help as Toronto’s bats heated up in the late innings.
With the game tied 1-1 in the bottom of the fifth, Barajas hit a leadoff home run, his sixth of the season, over the left-field wall to give the home side a lead it would not relinquish.
After Parrish got Atlanta DH Greg Norton to pop out with two outs and the bases loaded in the top of the sixth, the Jays pushed four more runs across in the bottom half of the inning.
Wells led off with his eighth homer of the year, and the next three batters reached base to chase Braves starter Tim Hudson. Jeff Bennett came on in relief and managed to get two outs while giving up only a run, but Joe Inglett’s single up the middle scored Lyle Overbay and Barajas to give Toronto a 6-1 cushion.
Hudson took the loss, giving up seven hits, three walks and six earned runs in five-plus innings to fall to 8-6.
.Scott Downs came on in relief of Parrish and pitched a three-up, three-down seventh, including two strikeouts, to extend his scoreless innings streak to 25. He hasn’t given up an earned run since May 2.
Things got interesting in the eighth, though, when Brian Tallet came on in place of Downs and promptly let the Braves back in the game by surrendering four earned runs. Tallet gave up a leadoff ground-rule double to No. 9 hitter Brandon Jones, who scored easily on a subsequent triple by Blanco. After Gotay struck out, Kelly Johnson singled in Blanco. Then Teixeira, Atlanta’s cleanup hitter, swatted a two-run homer over the left-field wall for his 16th of the season.
The Jays, however, scored three insurance runs in the bottom of the eighth. Barajas, who led off with a double, scored on David Eckstein’s one-out single, while Eckstein and Rios plated on a double by Wells.
"Wells was big today and, certainly, Barajas had a big game," Gaston said. "It was a team effort, but we had some big hits with guys in scoring position. When you do that, you post that many runs."
In all, Wells hit a single, double and home run and had three runs batted in, while Barajas doubled and homered. Stairs and Rolen each collected a single and a double, and Inglett had a pair of singles.
Blanco paced Atlanta’s offence with three singles and a triple.
B.J. Ryan pitched a scoreless ninth to close out the win for Toronto.
Notes: Pitcher Brian Wolfe was optioned to Syracuse to make room for Parrish Tomorrow’s game against the Braves is the last interleague game of the season for the Blue Jays . . . Toronto embarks on a six-game road trip after finishing with Atlanta, with three-game sets against the Seattle Mariners and Los Angeles Angels . . . The Jays improved to 4-4 since Cito Gaston took over as manager.
