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Stairs, Rolen belt Blue Jays past Cubs

Jun 14, 2008 - 6:40 AM TORONTO (Ticker) -- Matt Stairs and Scott Rolen belted back-to-back home runs in the third inning as the Toronto Blue Jays used six pitchers to keep the Chicago Cubs in check en route to posting a 3-2 triumph on Friday in the opener of a three-game interleague series.

A.J. Burnett (6-6) allowed two runs and four hits while striking out seven in five innings for Toronto, which won for just the fourth time in its last 12 games.

Four relievers notched at least one strikeout to bridge the gap to closer B.J. Ryan, who also fanned one while working the ninth to pick up his 14th save of the season.

"It was a good ball game, it really was after a couple of tough ones," Toronto manager John Gibbons said. "It was good to see the bullpen bounce back, especially B.J. with the save."

"Our relievers picked me up today," Burnett said.

Kosuke Fukudome had two hits and scored twice for Chicago, which saw its four-game winning streak come to an end. The loss was just the fourth in the last 18 contests for the Cubs.

With the game scoreless in the third inning, Alex Rios led off the frame with a double. Stairs then blasted his eighth home run of the season to right field to give Toronto a 2-0 advantage.

"I was very fortunate to get off the breaking ball over the zone, I got lucky to barrel it," Stairs said.

Rolen followed Stairs' lead, only this time depositing an offering from Sean Gallagher (3-3) over the left field wall.

"I didn't come up for strikes, I didn't get ahead of the count like I needed to," Gallagher said.

Jim Edmonds responded for the Cubs in the fourth inning, belting a double off the top of the wall in right field to plate Fukudome to cut the Blue Jays' lead to 3-1.

Eric Patterson, who was recalled from Class AAA Iowa on Thursday, halved the deficit with a run-scoring single in the sixth inning, but the Cubs were unable to generate any more offense despite having the bases loaded in the frame.

Ryan Theriot grounded into a 6-4-3 double play to end the threat.

"We had some opportunites, we had a lot of guys on base and we just couldn't get the big hit when we needed to," Patterson said.