Exactly one day after top prospect Brett Lawrie smashed a three run home run to defeat the Detroit Tigers by a score of 7-4 the Toronto Blue Jays continued their 2011 spring today against the Pittsburgh Pirates at McKechnie Park in Bradenton, Florida.

Ricky Romero was on the mound for Toronto, hoping that he could put together a more solid pitching effort than in his first spring outing where he allowed four earned runs on five hits, walking two in two and a third innings of work on March 1st against the Tigers.

Romero did just that. The left-hander was exceptional in four innings of work, allowing one hit while walking two hitters in a scoreless outing, which included six strikeouts. In this outing the California native just did his thing concentrating on pitching a solid game as opposed to working on one exact tool. In his first outing against the Tigers Romero was focussed on working a sinker pitch into his repertoire which could have been the reason behind the poor outing.

He also received offensive help from his team-mates who jumped on Pirates starter James McDonald early. The Jays scored four runs, two earned, off the right-hander as he could not complete his scheduled three innings of work.

After a two-run inning to open up the game Toronto scored another two runs in the third. The inning was kept alive by a throwing error from young shortstop Corey Wimberly. The Jays added one more run in the top of the fifth inning off of reliever Chris Resop to push the score to 5-0, the eventual final on the day.

Third baseman Jose Bautista had an excellent day at the plate going 3-3 with an RBI, two runs scored and two doubles. Outfielder Eric Thames continued to play well adding two RBI’s to his spring total, while Travis Snider reached base twice and Yunel Escobar pushed his spring batting average to .471 after he recorded two more hits and scored a run. Not everyone had an exceptional day at the plate. Edwin Encarnacion struck our four times in four plate appearances leaving seven men on base in the process and J.P. Arencibia continued a poor spring at the plate going 0-3 with a strikeout, dropping his average to .056.

The Jays also managed to get some work for pitchers Jon Rauch, Frank Francisco, Carlos Villanueva and Zach Stewart. Rauch pitched well striking out one and allowed a walk in a clean inning of work. Francisco got himself into some trouble loading the bases after a double to Pedro Ciriaco, a walk to Andrew McCutchen and a single to Pedro Alvarez, but Matt Diaz helped him out by grounding into an inning ending double play. Villanueva pitched another solid inning of work allowing no earned runs as he looked impressive once again and Zach Stewart finished out the game with two innings of work allowing one hit, walking two hitters and striking out five. Add on Romero’s performance to this group and the Toronto pitching staff was outstanding on the day shutting out the Pirates.

The Jays have an off-day on Monday before they visit the Tampa Bay Rays at 1:05pm EST on Tuesday. Brandon Morrow, who pitched well in his first spring outing, gets the starting nod for Toronto.