 The Blue Jays survived an Oakland surge in the 9th inning, just barely hanging on to earn their American League leading 21st win of the season.
An rarely ineffective Scott Downs came on in the 9th with a 4 run lead. Nine batters, four singles and a home run later the Blue Jays managed to escape with a 6-4 win, recording the final out on a deep fly ball in foul terrotory to right field with the bases loaded.
 Brian Tallet had another impressive game going 7.0 solid innings allowing just a single run on two hits -- one a solo shot off the bat of Jason Giambi (who later hit a two-run shot in the 9th).
In Tallet's five starts this year he's been solid in four outings and was almost untouchable in at least two of them. His only unimpressive outing was April 29 at Kansas City where he allowed 10 earned runs in four innings. Since then he's tosses two consecutive games in which he's gone 7.0 innings.
Starting Lineup
Toronto Blue Jays @ Oakland Athletics - May 9, 2009 (Box)
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2B
Snider
Lind
Overbay
HR
Overbay
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With the sticks, the Blue Jays struck the A's for a run in each of the first three innings. Adam Lind singled in Alex Rios in the first, Lyle Overbay homered in the second, and Lind doubled in Vernon Wells in the third.
They added another run to go up 4-0 in the fifth when Overbay scored Jose Bautista on a sacrifice fly.
The Athletics only managed a single run outside the 9th, which was on the solo home run off the bat of Jason Giambi in the 7th. But the Blue Jays quickly answered back with what would be two important runs in the top of the 8th as Overbay doubled in Bautista before being singled in himself shortly after by Marco Scutaro.
The two runs would turn out to be important, as the Athletics rallied for 3 runs in their half of the 9th, but ran out of outs with the bases loaded. Final score 6-4 Blue Jays.
With the win the Blue Jays improved their American League leading record to 21-12 and retained first place in the East after the Red Sox were smacked around by the Rays. They'll have a chance to win the series tomorrow before coming home for a big Yankees series starting on Tuesday, where Roy Halladay and A.J. Burnett will go head to head for the first time since Burnett departed Toronto.
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