Aaron Hill homered in his return to the lineup and the Toronto Blue Jays held off the Tampa Bay Rays for a 6-5 victory on Friday.
Brett Cecil (1-0), making his first start of the season, picked up the win in going 6 2/3 innings and allowing four runs on six hits with eight strikeouts.
Kevin Gregg picked up the save, striking out Ben Zobrist with a runner on second to end the game.
The Blue Jays scored four times in the first inning. Vernon Wells, Jose Bautista and Alex Gonzalez had run-scoring hits in the frame off Tampa Bay starter Matt Garza (3-1).
Hill, who hadn't played since April 8 because of a hamstring injury, homered to give the Blue Jays a 6-1 lead in the sixth inning before the Rays closed the gap to 6-2 on an RBI-double by Zobrist in the bottom half. Kapler then made it 6-4 with a two-run homer in the seventh.
The Rays cut it to 6-5 in the eighth following a run-scoring single by B.J. Upton.
Toronto | Tampa Bay | |
Brett Cecil | Player | Matt Garza |
Win | W/L | Loss |
6.2 | IP | 5.0 |
8 | Strikeouts | 6 |
6 | Hits | 8 |
5.40 | ERA | 9.00 |
Toronto | Tampa Bay | |
Jose Bautista | Player | Willy Aybar |
3 | Hits | 2 |
1 | RBI | 1 |
0 | HR | 1 |
6 | TB | 5 |
.600 | Avg | .667 |