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Starting Five: Crazy Eights for Jays' Lind

Sep 1, 2009 – 6:00 AM
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Andrew Johnson

Andrew Johnson %BloggerTitle%

Adam LindStarting Five is our wrapup of the previous day's baseball action with a quick nod to what is ahead.

You Oughta Know ...
That in a game of runs -- the basketball, not baseball variety -- it was Adam Lind who stood out.

The Blue Jays jumped out to an 11-0 lead through five innings in Texas. Then the Rangers, fighting to hang with Boston in the AL wild-card race, answered with 10 runs of their own. And Toronto followed with seven insurance runs in the ninth inning to win a slugfest 18-10.

The main difference? Lind, who homered twice, including a grand slam, and drove in eight runs

More Coverage: Scoreboard | Standings | Statistics

"I hit it on the sweet spot on a couple of pitches," Lind said.
His eight RBI are the most by a Blue Jay since Roy Howell drove in nine 32 years ago.

From the Trainer's Room ...

Kyle Blanks' season may be in jeopardy. The promising Padres rookie was diagnosed with a partial right plantar fascia tear. The plantar fascia is the tissue that supports the arch of the foot. Blanks has played off and on since Aug. 22, when he initially injured his foot, but was placed on the disabled list over the weekend. He'll be fitted for a cast and re-evaluated in a week.

Numbers Game ...
The before and after picture isn't pretty for Jarrod Washburn. The left-hander, who came to the Tigers in a July 31 trade, gave up eight runs in a loss to the Rays Monday afternoon. In six starts with his new club he is 1-2 with a 6.81 ERA. That's more than four runs higher than his ERA with the Mariners this season.
"He certainly didn't have very good success today," Detroit manager Jim Leyland said. "Some of it by his own doing and some of it was that's just the way it is sometimes.

"Sometimes it just isn't your day."
In Their Own Words ...
"He was like, 'You took the pressure off me.' He goes, 'If I haven't thrown a no-hitter by now, then I'm not going to do it.' He was probably the best. He said he didn't want to throw nine innings anyway. That's what type of attitude he has." -- Yankees utilityman Jerry Hairston Jr. on how Andy Pettitte consoled him after he made an error in the seventh inning that ended Pettitte's bid for a perfect game. Pettitte gave up a hit immediately after Hairston's error, but New York still beat Baltimore 5-1.

Advance Scouting ...
Tim Hudson makes his first start in the major leagues since last July, completing a lengthy rehab process from Tommy John surgery, and he'll do it on the same mound which he was initially hurt. The right-hander will take the hill at Land Shark Stadium as the Braves take on the Marlins (7:10 PM ET) in the second game of a critical series in the NL wild-card race. Atlanta won the opener to pull within three games of the wild-card lead.
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