The San Francisco Giants are coming off of their second World Series championship in three seasons and on Tuesday night the team will take on one looking for their first since the 1990s in the Toronto Blue Jays, but after a rough start to the season that might be a tough prospect.
On the mound on Tuesday will be two former Cy Young winners in Barry Zito and RA Dickey and while Zito has gotten off to a solid start, last year's NL winner has not. Dickey was one of the players acquired over the offseason by the Blue Jays but so far the results have been mixed at best and Dickey is just 2-5 with a plus-5.00 ERA. Melky Cabrera is on the Blue Jays after starring with the Giants and getting nabbed for PED use, while the team is just 7-12 at home and 15-24 overall and now have a big hole to climb out of in the AL East behind the Yankees.
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Cabrera was rewarded with a 16 million deal in the offseason and now the Giants will also give him a World Series ring for his contributions last season. Cabrera was doing very well until he was nabbed and now he has that hanging over him, but understands how important getting a ring is. Dickey is the one that needs to turn his season around and he has gone 0-3 over his last four starts and has a nearly seven ERA in that time at home. The Blue Jays are one of the top power hitting teams in the league and are coming off of a 12-4 win at Boston on Sunday, but they will need to turn things around big time to catch the Yankees, who are playing much better than expected. The team is made up of a bunch of old veterans taking the place of superstars, but names like Lyle Overbay and Travis Hafner have been coming through, as has old Blue Jay Vernon Wells, who still has the hate of many Toronto fans from his time with the team.
Edwin Encarnacion has good numbers against Zito, including two home runs in seven hits and now Cabrera is also hitting better than the start of the season as he is now hitting over .350 in his past eight games. Zito has lost 20 games in interleague play while going 5-12 in 17 games with the Giants and he is a few years removed from his Cy Young in the AL with the Athletics.
The San Francisco Giants are 23-15 on the season are 8-8 on the year on the road and are ranked ninth in the league in runs and fifth in batting average with a .266 clip, while the team is ranked 12th in on base percentage and 14th in slugging percentage. The team is first in the AL West over the Diamondbacks, while Pablo Sandoval is leading the team with 26 RBIs and .320 batting average. The Jays are 15-24 this past season so far and the team is last in the AL East. The Jays are ranked 20th in runs, 25th in batting average and 27th in on base percentage, while the team 13th in slugging.