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Roger Mooney

Roger Mooney covers the Tampa Bay Rays for The Tampa Tribune, TBO.com and News Channel 8. He has covered the Rays since their first season in 1998, including 11 years for the Bradenton Herald. Roger has also covered Florida, South Florida and Florida State football, the Bucs and the Lightning.

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Rays 12, Jays 2: Post game notes

Posted Apr 19, 2012 by Roger Mooney

Updated Apr 19, 2012 at 12:07 AM

ROGER MOONEY
TORONTO David Price pitched well enough Wednesday and the offense came through in a big way as the Rays rolled to a 12-2 win against the Blue Jays at the Rogers Centre.

The win evened the Rays record at 6-6 and enables them to return Friday to the Trop above .500 if they can finish off the Jays tonight in the finale of this 10-game road trip.

Jeremy Hellickson (1-0, 3.29) faces Henderson Alvarez (0-0, 2.77).

Here are some notes from the win …

—The Rays have won just three of the first nine games on the trip, but two of the victories have come in the past three games.

—Price improved to 2-1 on the season and 4-0 lifetime in Toronto. He is also 10-2 with a 2.06 ERA in 14 career starts against the Jays.

On the downside, Price is still not as efficient with his pitches as he can be. He threw 106 pitches, one shy of his season-high, and failed to pitch six full innings in four of his last six starts.

—Ben Zobrist, moved to second in the batting order, sparked the offense to a season-high 12 home runs by hitting the first of the Rays season-high four home runs. It came on the first pitch of his first at-bat against Jays starter Brandon Morrow and drove in Desmond Jennings, who led off the game with a single.

It was Zobrist’s second home run of the season. He now has six RBIs.

—Jennings leads the team with nine runs.

—Matt Joyce, who will return to his right field platoon role with Zobrist when B.J. Upton comes off the disabled list Friday, extended his hitting streak to six games. He had a career-high three extra-base hits – two doubles and a home run – and matched his career-high with three runs.

—Luke Scott hit a ninth-inning grand slam for the final runs of the night. It was his third home run of the season, and the four RBIs gave him 12, which tied Carlos Peña for the team lead. It was also the third grand slam of his career.

—Peña’s six-game hitting streak came to an end, but he continued his streak of reaching base in every game this season with his ninth inning walk.

—Sean Rodriguez drove in his first two runs of the season. The first came on a sacrifice fly in the second inning. His second RBI came in the sixth inning when he hit his first home run of the year.

—Joel Peralta now has back-to-back scoreless innings after striking out the only two batters he faced Wednesday.

—Wade Davis followed his three scoreless innings Friday in Boston with 1 1/3 scoreless innings.

—Blue Jays infielder Omar Vizquel, 44, had a pinch-hit single in the eighth inning off Wade Davis to become the oldest player in Jays history to collect a hit.