Toronto — On a day when a significant blow to their postseason hopes came from the trainer's room, the Oakland Athletics could have used a Cy Young performance from Barry Zito.
It was not to be found, however. Instead, the Toronto Blue Jays' Roy Halladay, one of the candidates for the American League Cy Young Award this season, emerged victorious in a showdown against Zito, last year's winner, as the Blue Jays beat the Athletics 6-3.
Halladay, 17-5, picked up his second win in five August starts while Zito fell to 10-11. The last time the Athletics had a pitcher lose as many games was 2000 when Kevin Appier and Gil Heredia lost 11 each.
The win, in front of a crowd of 22,050 at an open SkyDome, was the third consecutive for the Blue Jays. The last time Toronto won as many games in a row was from June 15 to 20, when it won four straight.
Before the game, the Oakland players were told by manager Ken Macha that a magnetic resonance imaging examination on starting pitcher Mark Mulder revealed a stress fracture of his right fibula. Mulder (15-9, 3.13 earned-run average) was placed on the 15-day disabled list on Thursday with what was originally diagnosed as right hip tendinitis. Athletics general manager Billy Beane said he has resolved himself to the likelihood that Mulder is done for the regular season. He might be back for the playoffs.
"We just sat down and talked about it for five minutes," Macha said of the meeting with the players. "We just won two of three games in Boston where we had a total of nine innings out of our starters. I didn't want anybody to start feeling sorry for themselves.
"We still have a Cy Young winner [Zito]. And we still have a guy leading the league in saves [Keith Foulke.]"
Zito took to the mound last night in search of his first three-game winning streak of the season. He faced Halladay, whose Cy Young bid has been derailed slightly by a 1-3 record and a 5.06 ERA in his four previous August starts.
Both starters laboured last night, and weren't around by the seventh inning.
Zito threw 60 pitches, 30 for strikes, through three innings and didn't make it out of the sixth, after the Blue Jays scored three runs for a 4-3 lead. Carlos Delgado hit a run-scoring double and Bobby Kielty and Chris Woodward each had RBI singles.
Kevin Cash dropped a bunt single on the first pitch from Athletics reliever Chad Bradford to bring in the fourth run of the inning and give the Blue Jays a 5-3 lead. But Toronto ran itself out of something bigger when Woodward was caught in a rundown after Reed Johnson's botched bunt attempt. Cash was thrown out at the plate trying to score on Johnson's grounder, which had been thrown away by second baseman Mark Ellis but quickly recovered by first baseman Scott Hatteberg.
Johnson broke out of an 0-for-22 slump with a third-inning single and scored the game's first run on a double from Vernon Wells.
Zito gave up six hits in 5{ innings, striking out three and walking three.
Halladay, making his first start at the SkyDome since July 27, gave up eight hits in six innings, striking out eight and walking none. One of the three hits was a lead-off home run in the sixth by Miguel Tejada, which struck the facing of the 200 level.
The Athletics, who went into last night's game with a one-game lead in the American League wild-card race, could pursue a trade to replace Mulder. The Blue Jays' Cory Lidle, who will start the finale of this four-game series on Monday, has cleared waivers. Oakland and Toronto came close to agreeing on a deal for Kelvim Escobar just before the trade deadline, but Escobar didn't clear waivers. Now, the Blue Jays are more inclined to re-sign Escobar than trade him.
Mulder isn't the only starter hurting for the Athletics. Tim Hudson was scratched from his start on Thursday because of a bruised hand. But he was still scheduled to start tomorrow.
