Lawrie clashes with umpire in loss to Rays

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – The Toronto Blue Jays’ quest for their first series win at Tropicana Field since April 2007 is down to the rubber match after Tuesday night’s 8-5 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays.

Rookie Drew Hutchison was knocked around for six runs on seven hits, both career-highs, over four innings, the shortest of his seven starts so far, leaving his team in a hole it never climbed out of.

The big blow was a monster three-run home run to straightaway centre by Carlos Pena, batting leadoff to try and get him out of his slump, that travelled an estimated 452 feet and opened up a 6-0 advantage.

Ace Ricky Romero, 6-4 with a 3.28 ERA in 11 career starts versus the Rays, starts for the Blue Jays in Wednesday’s finale against James Shields.

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THE BIG PICTURE: The Blue Jays (24-20) failed to climb more than five games over .500 for the third time this season, in the process slipping two games back of the Rays (26-18) for second in the American League East. Tampa Bay had lost two straight and four of five.

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THE OFFENCE: The Blue Jays were silenced by Matt Moore through four innings before scoring four times in the fifth, two on Jose Bautista’s bases loaded single, two more on Edwin Encarnacion’s grounder to third thrown away by Sean Rodriguez.

Yan Gomes added his second home run in the sixth, but the Blue Jays never got closer than two runs.

Bautista finished 3-for-4, the latest in a string of strong performances that has pushed his average up to .225.

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THE PITCHING: While Hutchison (3-2) was hit fairly hard, he at least made the Rays earn it all by not walking a single batter. He walked four in each of his previous two starts, something out of character for him.

"Yeah, I also made just as many bad pitches, just they were hit, they weren’t balls," said Hutchison. "I just didn’t make good pitches. Obviously I struggled, never got in a rhythm, just didn’t give us a chance to win, put us down too big a hole to come back from."

Luke Scott’s solo shot in the second opened the scoring, while Hutchison also gave up an RBI double to Drew Sutton and a run-scoring fielder’s choice to Chris Gimenez before Pena’s blast in the fourth.

Asked what wasn’t working, Hutchison replied: "Everything, I just wasn’t executing quality pitches down in the zone."

Rookie lefty Evan Crawford also had a rough go, allowing an RBI single to Chris Gimenez in the fifth and a solo shot to B.J. Upton in the sixth, both with two out.

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LAWRIE AND THE UMPS: His helmet-tossing fit still fresh in many minds, Brett Lawrie had a pair of incidents with umpires Tuesday. The first came in the fourth when his foul liner struck first base umpire Andy Fletcher in the right arm and knocked him out of the game for a couple of innings.

The second was far more controversial, as second base umpire Rob Drake called him out in the eighth for not retouching second base on his way back to first after Gomes’s fly ball to centre was caught.

One replay showed Lawrie never rounded second, meaning a retouch wasn’t necessary, although a different angle suggested the opposite. He argued the call before being pulled away.

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LIND LIMBO: Adam Lind remains on the Blue Jays’ 40-man roster, despite being reportedly placed on outright waivers Friday.

That suggests that if he was indeed placed on waivers, he cleared, since the waiver period is 48 hours, and that the Blue Jays weren’t necessarily looking to clear a spot on the 40, but rather daring other teams to take the remainder of his US$5 million salaries this year and next, plus at minimum the US$3.5 million in buyouts he’s owed.

Lind has been playing for triple-A Las Vegas since Sunday.

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HONEST UPTON: B.J. Upton says he saw his controversial home run ball Monday hit the C-ring catwalk on the Tropicana Field roof, an automatic home run under ground rules the Rays centre-fielder thinks should be changed.

Umpires reviewed the play and awarded Upton the home run, saying it struck a suspended object between the B and C rings. The C ring hangs over medium depth in centre field, where the ball ended up dropping.

"If anything, in my opinion, it should be a double," Upton told the Tampa Bay Times. "Don’t get me wrong, I’ll take the home run. We all know it could have been an out, but we’ll never know.

"To make it fair for the pitcher, it should be a double, or just make it in play. … (Kyle) Drabek made the pitch he needed to make, I popped it up, odds are it’s probably an out, and it turns out he gives up a run because of a ring. I can’t sit here and say that’s right."

Blue Jays manager John Farrell said Monday that the team couldn’t see it definitively hit anything on video, and at least one grassy knoll type of theory was floating through the clubhouse.

Some wondered if the ball hit a bat rather than a suspended object, and while it’s unlikely, it’s not inconceivable.

Rays infielder Elliot Johnson found a wounded bat in centre field last month and used a couple of cups to scoop it up and take it to the clubhouse. A team trainer later dropped it off at a vet’s office.

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LITSCH’S SHOULDER CLEAN: Jesse Litsch learned Tuesday that tests to make sure his right shoulder was still free of infection came back clear, but further surgery remains a possibility.

Litsch has been struggling with shoulder pain since receiving a platelet rich plasma injection during spring training for his sore shoulder, causing an infection that had to be surgically repaired.

Strong pain, however, has remained, leading to the subsequent test to ensure all was OK.

"Any time you hear you’re free, I’ve known that for about five weeks now, but I saw Dr. (Lewis) Yocum last week and he wanted to make sure it was still gone, just in case," said Litsch. "There might be another surgery, we’re going to give it another month of rehab, but if surgery happens again you don’t want to go in there when there’s a bug in your arm."

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