Fussball » "We were a lot better in our zone,"

TORONTO -- Its all about numbers for the Toronto Blue Jays these days. Good and bad. Their hopes of reaching baseballs post-season are alive mathematically by the thinnest of margins. Right-hander Drew Hutchison, however, led the way on Wednesday when he equalled his career best with 10 strikeouts in an 11-1 victory over the Chicago Cubs. It was the fourth win in a row for the Blue Jays (76-69) and the sixth straight loss for the Cubs (64-82). In the three-game series sweep Toronto outscored Chicago 28-3. It was the third solid start for the Blue Jays in the series. Rookie right-hander Marcus Stroman pitched his first career shutout in an 8-0 win on Monday and left-hander Mark Buehrle held the Cubs to two runs over seven innings in the 9-2 win on Tuesday. "Theyve really picked it up, too," manager John Gibbons said. "Even coming into the season, that was really the question mark of the team, how was the rotation going to hold up. Of course, 1/8Brandon 3/8 Morrow went down but those other guys have been steady for pretty much the whole year. We added a guy here and there to make a spot start to give them a little breather but theyre pitching a lot better than I expected if you want to know the truth. "Thats important. What they do is most of them give you a shot every time out there. When were pitching good, were capable of scoring a lot of runs every night, and when we play good defence, we win." Hutchison (10-11) allowed four hits and one run, on a homer by Jorge Soler, over 6 1/3 innings. His other 10 strikeout game was July 1 against the Milwaukee Brewers, also at Rogers Centre. "My command has been good," Hutchison said. "Ive been commanding the baseball with all three of my pitches. My slider has been good to both sides of the plate lately. I think thats been a big reason why Ive pitched well and my fastball command has been (good). Try to continue to throw the way I am now and give us a chance every time I go out." The 24-year-old held the Cubs to two doubles and a walk in the first six innings. But in the seventh, Soler hit his fourth homer of the season with one out for the Cubs. Welington Castillo followed with a double and kept going to third on an error by centre fielder Anthony Gose. Left-hander Brett Cecil replaced Hutchison and finished the inning with a strikeout and a fly out. "Its been going well lately," Hutchison said. "I felt like I pitched six really good innings and maybe the wait there hurt a little bit coming out for the seventh. But thats always a good thing when you wait that long. Falling behind those guys was frustrating but overall I thought it was a good outing." The Blue Jays added five runs in the home seventh inning against Cubs relievers Wesley Wright and Kyuji Fujikawa. Edwin Encarnacion and Dioner Navarro each had two-run singles in the inning and Danny Valencia drove in the other run with a single to give him his second RBI on the game. Dalton Pompey, of Mississauga, Ont., had his first big-league RBI in the two-run eighth when he grounded out as a pinch-hitter. "I was nervous, Im not going to lie," said Pompey who was called up for September from triple-A Buffalo. "My arm was shaking before I went up to bat and I just had to collect myself, take a deep breath and try to stick with my approach, it was hard. Even the first pitch, I didnt really see it. Just had to collect myself, try to put the ball in play and good things happen." Cubs right-hander Kyle Hendricks (6-2) allowed six hits and four runs in 5 2/3 innings for his first loss since July 27. "We got into a little trouble there and werent able to dig ourselves out," Cubs manager Rick Renteria said. "They kept chipping away, they kept swinging the bats, they kept doing things to keep their offence going, they kept the line moving. They took advantage of miscues. Kyle probably deserved a better fate." The Cubs had a chance to take the lead in the first inning after Javier Baez walked with one out. Luis Valbuena followed with a double to right centre. Baez continued around third before being held up. He was thrown out trying to return to third by Navarro after the catcher had taken the relay throw home from second baseman Ryan Goins. Hutchison struck out Soler to end the inning. That started a run of 15 consecutive batters retired by Hutchison until Chris Coghlan doubled to centre with two out in the sixth. Hutchison responded by striking out Baez. The Blue Jays scored a run in the third on a double by Kevin Pillar who slid home safely on a sacrifice fly to left by Gose. Pillar had moved to third on a groundout to first by Goins. The Blue Jays took a 4-0 lead in the sixth. Gose singled to left and then came around to score on a bloop single by Jose Reyes when the right fielder, Soler, mishandled the ball for an error. Reyes took third on a fly out to right by Jose Bautista, whose 13-game hit streak ended, and scored when Adam Lind sliced a single to left. Navarro followed with a walk and Valencia doubled to centre to score Lind. "I felt really good," Hendricks said. "That was one of my best outings, from the start, that Ive had all year. It was one of those innings where I made a lot of good pitches, probably should have gotten out of it. If you fall behind on those guys, theyre going to make you pay. Sometimes theres nothing you can do." Notes: Announced attendance at Rogers Centre was 19,411. àThe Blue Jays are considering starting LHP Mark Buehrle on Sunday to give RHP Marcus Stroman an extra day off after he pitched his first career shutout on Tuesday against the Cubs. Buehrle is 18 innings short of pitching at least 200 innings in a season for the 14th straight year. àThe Blue Jays have Thursday off before completing the home stand with a three-game series against the Tampa Bay Rays. LHP J.A. Happ (9-9, 4.44 E.R.A.) will start the opener on Friday against RHP Nathan Karns, who is making his first start of the season in the majors. Air Jordan 4 Outlet . Richard Jefferson scored 17 points and Diante Garrett had a career-high 15 points as the Jazz had seven players with 10 points or more in Utahs largest margin of victory this season. Air Jordan 4 Retro For Sale . PAUL, Minn. http://www.cheapairjordan4.net/ . Noah finished with 13 points, 10 rebounds and nine assists in 34 minutes. He was headed for his fourth triple-double of the season, but sat down with about three minutes left because of the lopsided score. Kirk Hinrich scored 19 points for Chicago, going 5 for 6 on 3-pointers, Carlos Boozer added 18 points, D. Air Jordan 4 Wholesale . -- The Los Angeles Clippers chose not to speak publicly about owner Donald Sterling before they faced the Golden State Warriors for Game 4 of their first-round series Sunday. Air Jordan 4 Retro Cheap . Alen, 28, hit .315 with five home runs, 59 RBI and a career-high nine stolen bases for the Goldeyes last season. He is the longest serving catcher in Goldeyes history, having already spent five seasons with the organization.EL SEGUNDO, CALIF. – It may end up being the key matchup in the first-ever playoff series between the Los Angeles Kings and Anaheim Ducks. A stingy defence led by Drew Doughty against an explosive offence led by Hart Trophy nominee Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry. "Hit and hope," is all Kings head coach Darryl Sutter would say on Friday when asked how his team can slow down the Ducks dynamic duo. Luckily, Sutters top defenceman was willing to go a bit more in-depth. "Ive played Getzlaf and Perry so many times," said Doughty. "Ive played with them [most recently at the Sochi Olympics], I know exactly how they play. I study how they play. Theyre two of the hardest players to play in the league, no matter who is the third guy on that line. Its such a hard line to play against. But, like I said, Ive studied how they play so many times that I know exactly what theyre going to do and it just comes down to out-competing them, being a better player in every situation. "Its going to be tough for me to do, but I have to do it." Doughty, who averaged 26:31 of ice time per game during the first round win over the San Jose Sharks, will see a lot of Anaheims top line along with his defence partner Jake Muzzin. "Those two have been together for a long time," said Muzzin when asked about Getzlaf and Perry. "They have a lot of chemistry between each other and they kind of know where theyre going to be on certain plays. So you have to be very clear on where they are on the ice and be very vocal with each other on defending that top line." But the adjustment shouldnt be too tough for the Kings. Doughty is expecting a similar series to what his team experienced against the Sharks. "Theyve got really good forwards, especially their top guys are really good like San Joses," he said. "I think we can take advantage in some parts of the game with their defence, like we could with San Jose as well. I think Anaheim has maybe a little bit better of a goalie, so itll be harder to get it past him. I think its going to be the same type of game. Theyre going to get in on the forecheck. Their forecheck is a little bit different, but they actually come harder than San Jose, surprisingly. So we know theyre going to create off that." And Doughty warned against focusing too much on the Ducks dynamic duo, who combined for 74 goals in the regular season (28 per cent of Anaheims league-leading 263 goals). "For most of the season it wasnt really Getzlaf and Perry, who dominated our team," explained Doughty, "it was kind of the third, fourth-line guys like [Nick] Bonino, [Andrew] Cogliano and [Patrick] Maroon and guys like that so we got to pay special attention to them to." Getzlaf had one goal and one assist in the five regular season games against the Kings while Perry had two goals and two assists. Bonino had one goal and two assists, Cogliano had one goal, while Maroon had two goals in four games. Doughty remembers the Ducks secondary scoring being a key factor in the season series, which saw Anaheim win four of the five encounters, including an outdoor game at Dodger Stadium. But what stood out to Sutter during the regular-season showdowns? "We played two really good games in their building," Sutter said, leaving it at that. The teams split the two games at the Honda Center where the series will open on Saturday and where Ducks coach Bruce Boudreau will have the advantage of last line change. Sutter was in fine form on Friday in his meeting with the media, which lasted a little under three minutes with a good chunk of that being awkward silence following short answers. The fiirst question to Sutter was: whats the biggest challenge your team will face in the second-round series? "Were playing indoors," a deadpan Sutter stated.dddddddddddd "We heard originally the whole series was going to be played at either the Angels stadium or at the Dodgers. So now we found out today that theres actually four in Honda and three at Staples [Center], so weve got a lot of work to do to get that figured out." Its a little warm to play outside, a reporter retorted referencing the high of 35 degrees celsius in Orange County. "Its supposed to cool off, though," Sutter responded, not missing a beat. The Kings had no problem handling the heat against the Sharks as they became just the fourth team in NHL history to win a best-of-seven series after losing the first three games. And one player who has adapted well to the Hollywood spotlight is the 25-year-old Muzzin. Muzzin has proven worthy of the top-pairing assignment during just his second trip to the NHL post-season. Last year, Muzzin picked up three assists in 17 playoff games while averaging 15:50 of ice time per game. This year, Muzzin already has two goals and three assists through seven games while averaging 18:26 of ice time. "I think its just probably a little bit more experience," Sutter said. "If you take last years playoff where he was in and out of the lineup or didnt play that much, this year weve had to rely on him a little bit more to get him ready for playoffs and thats sort of just a continuation of that." "Jake was only on for one goal against in the whole series [against San Jose], shows you how good he was playing," said Doughty. "We did well offensively too [combining for 12 points]. The good thing about me and Muzz is when a teams emphasis is so hard on the forecheck, our breakout ability is really good where one of us can do it on our own. We can talk to each other, help out and I think that is the strength of us. We dont spend a lot of time in our D-zone. And when we do, were both physical, big guys who can pin a guy to have a loose puck and we can get it that way. We did really well in our D-zone, and thats why we were successful as a pair." Joe Pavelski, Joe Thornton, Logan Couture, Patrick Marleau and Brent Burns were held to just one goal over the final four games of the series against the Kings thanks in large part to the work of Muzzin and Doughty. "We were a lot better in our zone," said Muzzin when asked about the reversal in fortune in the series. "Getting pucks in and out, not giving them chances to create cycle opportunities and chances like that. [Jonathan Quick] made some big saves when called upon. But as a whole team, we definitely limited their chances by being quick in our zone and I think we had better gaps on the rush and better awareness on our changes and on the rush as well." NOTES: Jeff Carter and Willie Mitchell (lower body) did not take part in Fridays practice at the teams facility in El Segundo. Sutter said it was an optional skate and Carter took the option after working out off the ice on Thursday. Carter did see his ice time dip in the final few games of the Sharks series, playing 13:07 in Game 6 and 14:06 in Game 7 ... Anze Kopitar on whether theres any difference between facing Frederik Andersen and Jonas Hiller: "No, I dont think its going to matter too much, except for the left catch (Andersen) and the right catch (Hiller). Thats the biggest difference." ... Forward lines at practice minus Carter: Gaborik-Kopitar-Brown; Pearson-Nolan-Toffoli; King-Stoll-Williams; Clifford-Richards-Nolan. ' ' '