Music: {allcanada} BLUE JAYS PLAY HOST TO ORIOLES; SEND VILLANUEVA TO THE MOUND

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

{allcanada} BLUE JAYS PLAY HOST TO ORIOLES; SEND VILLANUEVA TO THE MOUND

The Toronto Blue Jays have to be pretty happy to see the Boston Red Sox leaving town. Their smiles are even brighter with the Baltimore Orioles coming to Rogers Centre.

The Blue Jays, losers of five straight at home, try to secure a 15th straight victory as the host over the Orioles this evening in the opener of a three- game series.

Toronto is on its longest home skid since April, 2008 and was just blasted in three games by the Red Sox, getting outscored 35-6 in a sweep that ran its overall losing streak to a season high-tying four straight.

Thirty of Boston's runs came over the final two games, including Sunday's 14-1 thumping. Blue Jays starter Kyle Drabek was drilled for career highs of eight runs and three homers over four-plus innings.

Toronto managed just two hits in the loss, including Jose Bautista's 21st homer of the season.

"I'm seriously not making the season to be about myself and home runs. I'm trying to win games and we didn't get it done today," said Bautista, who homered for the first time in 14 games.

Toronto would like to make tonight about extending its home winning streak over Baltimore. The Blue Jays have won 14 straight since their last loss to the O's at Rogers Centre on Aug. 7, 2009 and have taken 23 of the past 25 at home in this series.

The success hasn't been limited to just Canada either. Toronto took two of three at Baltimore from June 3-5 and is 17-4 in the last 21 meetings.

The pressure will be on 27-year-old Carlos Villanueva to keep Toronto's run going and he brings an impressive streak of his own into this start. The right-hander has won eight straight decisions since his last loss on Aug. 17, 2009 with the Brewers.

Villanueva is 4-0 with a 3.09 earned run average in 17 games this year, going 3-0 with a 4.84 ERA in four starts. He beat the Orioles on June 3 in his first career start against them, allowing two runs over 5 1/3 innings, then yielded four runs over a season-high seven innings to beat the Royals, 9-8, on Wednesday.

Baltimore doesn't bring a mass amount of momentum into this opener, losing two straight since a four-game slide. It dropped a rubber match on Sunday to Tampa Bay, 9-6.

Adam Jones, Vladimir Guerrero and Luke Scott all hit solo homers, but starter Brian Matusz put his team in an early hole by allowing four runs on five hits and four walks over just 1 1/3 innings.

"From the get-go I didn't get a good feel. It was just one of those days when you have to battle without your good stuff," said Matusz. "I just wasn't able to get on track today."

Baltimore will hope that Monday's off day will help get Mark Reynolds onto the field after the third baseman left Sunday's game in the seventh inning due to a left forearm contusion suffered two frames earlier. Reynolds was struck by hard liner in the field, though X-rays were negative.

In an effort to limit Zach Britton's innings this season, Baltimore will skip the rookie tonight and push his next start back to Friday versus the Nationals.

"We knew all along we were going to try and give him some spots here and there that would stretch out the innings that we're going to be able to use him this year," Orioles manager Buck Showalter said of Britton on the O's website.

Taking Britton's place tonight will be 32-year-old Chris Jakubauskas, who made his first start with the Orioles last Tuesday after allowing nine runs over five relief outings to start the year.

Jakubauskas picked up his first decision of the year, beating the Athletics behind five scoreless innings. The righty allowed three hits and a walk, striking out five.

He lowered his season ERA to 4.58 and will make his first career start versus the Blue Jays.