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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 6, Jays 1: Shields goes over 200 innings for the 5th straight season

Posted Aug 27, 2011 by Roger Mooney

Updated Aug 26, 2011 at 11:51 PM

ROGER MOONEY
TORONTO James Shields told Joe Maddon during spring training that his goal this season is to pitch a few complete games and Maddon has let Shields reach that goal.

So after allowing a leadoff single to start the ninth on Friday, Maddon let Shields go for it, and Shields did, tossing his 10th complete game of the season in the Rays 6-1 victory against the Blue Jays at Rogers Centre.

Shields needed 125 pitches, but allowed seven hits and struck out 12.

More important to Shields, though, was the nine innings gave him 201 for the season, which has been his goal ever year.

“Double-digit CGs in one season, you only have 33 starts a year, it’s pretty special. I’m definitely pretty pleased,” Shields said. “I’m actually really, really happy I hit 200 innings again. That’s one of my goals every single year, and I think this is five straight I believe. I’m really, really proud of that.”

Shields has reached 200 inning in each of his five-full years in the big leagues, topping out at 219 2/3 innings in 2009.

Shields is the first pitcher since CC Sabathia in 2008 to throw 10 complete games. Sabathia did it while pitching for Cleveland and Milwaukee. That fact makes Shields the first American League pitcher to reach double-digits in complete games since Baltimore’s Scott Erickson had 11 in 1998.

Shields is also the first AL pitcher with 10 complete games and four shutouts in the same season since Jack McDowell did it for the White Sox in 1993.

Here are some more tidbits from the victory:

—The Rays picked a game on the Yankees in the Wild Card standings and now trail the Bombers by 7 ½ games. The Angels loss at Texas moved the Rays into second place in the Wild Card standings.

—The Rays now have an American League-high 12 complete games, which matches the 2002 Rays for most in one season in club history.

—The Rays won 11 of their last 16 against the Blue Jays and six of their last nine in Toronto.

—Evan Longoria’s two home runs gives him 24 for the season. It was his second multi-home run game of the year. He leads the major leagues with 13 home runs since the All-Star Break and leads the American League with 19 home runs since June 20.

Longoria has 10 home runs this month. He’s two by Carlos Peña’s record for home runs in the month of August set in 2009.

His career-high for home runs is 33 in 2009. He hit 27 as a rookie in 2008.

—Desmond Jennings hit his sixth home of the season, a two-run shot in the third inning. It was only the second home run by Jennings with a runner on base. The other was his first major league home run, which was also a two-run shot.

—John Jaso hit his fourth home run of the season. He hit five last year as a rookie.