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Marcum's red-hot pitching carries Jays past Rays

May 8, 2008 - 4:18 AM TORONTO (Ticker) -- In an old-fashion pitchers' duel, Shaun Marcum was the last one standing.

Marcum shined on the mound and Marco Scutaro's RBI single broke a scoreless tie in the seventh as the Toronto Blue Jays posted a 6-2 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays on Wednesday.

Marcum (4-2) dazzled through 8 2/3 innings, giving up two runs and four hits with a season high-tying nine strikeouts in improving to 2-0 against the Rays. He also fanned nine in his last outing.

"(Marcum) was dominating, but you know what?" Blue Jays manager Jay Gibbons said. "I can't say it really surprises me any more. He goes out there and gives you some kind of effort every night."

The 26-year-old has won back-to-back starts for the first time this season and lowered his ERA to 2.59.

After giving up just one hit in the third, the righthander retired 13 of the next 14 batters to keep the game scoreless heading into the bottom of the seventh.

With one out and runners on first and second base, Scutaro hit an RBI single to left field off Tampa Bay starter Matt Garza (1-1) to score Aaron Hill for a 1-0 lead.

"I was very excited," Marcum said. "It kind of gets a little frustrating going out there in the sixth and the seventh inning, and it's still 0-0, so it's nice to get a little breathing room."

"We needed it bad," Scutaro said. "We've been kind of struggling scoring runs, and you feel kind of bad sometimes for the pitchers, they do a good job and we can't score runs for them. It was nice to see that."

Scutaro's effort must have awoken Toronto's bats.

In the eighth, Shannon Stewart drew a leadoff walk and scored on Scott Rolen's two-run homer to center against Rays reliever Scott Dohmann to push the lead to 3-0.

The Blue Jays added three more runs to close out the five-run frame with run-scoring singles from Hill, Rod Barajas and Scutaro for a 6-0 lead.

Marcum had a chance to register his first career shutout after getting the first two batters to ground out. However, Akinori Iwamura and Carl Crawford both singled before coming around on B.J. Upton's two-run double to center in the ninth.

Garza also was outstanding, yielding one run and six hits over 6 2/3 innings. But the righthander remained winless through two starts against the Blue Jays.

It was the Blue Jays' first win in the series in six tries and snapped their streak of 20 games in which they'd scored five runs or fewer.

"We don't focus on that any more," said Gibbons, whose club has won six of their last seven games. "We're doing enough to win."