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Litsch pitches Blue Jays past Orioles

Sep 28, 2008 - 9:13 PM BALTIMORE (Ticker) -- Vernon Wells went 4-for-4 with two home runs and five RBI and Jesse Litsch tossed seven strong innings as the Toronto Blue Jays recorded a 10-1 victory over the Baltimore Orioles on Sunday.

Wells belted a solo homer in the second to open the scoring and smacked an RBI single in the following frame to give Litsch all the support he would need.

A run-scoring double by Melvin Mora was the only blemish against Litsch (13-9), who yielded three hits and struck out five.

"When you get runs on the board, you get confidence and it makes it a lot easier to go out there and pitch," Litsch said.

The Blue Jays (86-76) finished the regular season in fourth place in the American League East Division, but finished 10 games over the .500 mark for the third time in seven years.

A major reason for their second-half surge was the impact interim manager Cito Gaston made on a deteriorating clubhouse morale. General manager J.P. Ricciardi fired John Gibbons on June 20, when the team was saddled with a pedestrian 35-39 record.

"It was nice to finish with a win today and go 10 games over .500," Gaston said. "That was a goal I set at one time and we did get there. Hopefully, next year we will be heading to a playoff game. The guys played hard and finished up good. Very proud of them."

Under Gaston's reign, the Blue Jays went 51-36 despite suffering season-ending injuries to key starting pitchers Shaun Marcum and Dustin McGowan.

Lyle Overbay hit a solo shot in the fourth off Baltimore starter Jeremy Guthrie (10-12), who exited the game after four innings. Alfredo Simon came on in relief in the fifth, but Wells greeted him rudely with a three-run homer to extend the Blue Jays' lead to 6-0.

"Vernon had a great game today," Gaston said. "He finished up strong with 20 home runs and hit .300 on the nose. If you look back on all the time he missed this year he could have 10-15 more home runs and 20 to 25 RBI."

Toronto added three runs in the eighth, sending the Orioles to their 11th loss in 12 games.

"Litsch pitched a great game," Baltimore manager Dave Trembley said. "We had minimal opportunities."