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Overbay homers twice as Blue Jays win third straight

May 31, 2008 - 6:14 AM ANAHEIM, California (Ticker) -- Lyle Overbay belted a pair of home runs to lead the Toronto Blue Jays to a 10-4 victory over the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim on Friday.

Overbay hit a leadoff homer in the second, added an RBI single during a four-run fifth and blasted a solo shot in the seventh to lead the Blue Jays to their third straight win.

Scott Rolen drove in a pair of runs for Toronto, which has outscored its opponents, 52-15, in winning eight of its last nine games.

"I got some pitches I could handle tonight," Overbay said. "Had some pitches up in the zone and made good contact. Hitting is contagious, and right now, we are going good."

Overbay, Rolen, Rod Barajas and Brad Wilkerson all drove in runs in a fifth inning that saw the Blue Jays send nine batters to the plate. Dustin McGowan (4-4) was the beneficiary of the outburst despite allowing four runs - three earned - and seven hits in six innings.

With the game tied at 3-3, Toronto broke it open by pounding Jered Weaver (4-6) and Darren Oliver in the decisive fifth frame.

"We put together good at-bats tonight against (Weaver) and got his pitch count up," Rolen said. "Our offense stayed hot, and (I) hope we can keep it going against them for the rest of the series."

Weaver left after allowing three consecutive singles to start the inning.

"That inning was big for us since we got Weaver out of the game," Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said. "It makes it easy when the offense is clicking like this."

"This wasn't my best outing," Weaver admitted. "I got ahead in the count and just couldn't put them away. I was missing with my spots and left the ball up in the zone, and they hit me hard."

Oliver entered and fared no better as Rolen plated the go-ahead run with a base hit to left field and, one batter later, Overbay delivered an RBI single.

After a wild pitch, Barajas and Wilkerson each added a run-scoring single to give the Blue Jays a 7-3 lead. Weaver was charged with six runs and 10 hits in four-plus innings.

Casey Kotchman, who had tied the game at 3-3 with an RBI single in the fourth, added another in the sixth. However, Overbay belted his second homer of the game and fifth of the season in the bottom half to give Toronto an 8-4 bulge.

"This was a good win for us, to come in here and take the first game of the series," Overbay said. "Hope we can come out here tomorrow and get another win against a good pitcher (in John Lackey)."

Marco Scutaro plated a run with a single in the eighth and Wilkerson capped the scoring with an RBI base hit in the ninth.