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The Toronto Blue Jays look to capitalize on a key homestand, beginning on Friday night when they open a three-game set with the Tampa Bay Rays at Rogers Centre. The Blue Jays have their sights set on the American Leagues second wild card spot, after watching their deficit in the AL East swell from 1 1/2 games to 9 since the start of August. Toronto currently sits four games back of Detroit in the wild card race. The Blue Jays picked up a much needed 9-5 victory in Milwaukee on Wednesday after losing six of their previous seven games. The offense came alive with 15 hits, seven of which came off the bats of the No. 1-3 hitters in the lineup. Jose Bautista homered to help cap a five-run sixth inning. The nine runs marked the teams highest output in a game since July 28. "In reality, thats baseball. You go through those stretches," Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said. "They didnt get a couple of two-out hits, might have made a difference in the game too. Sometimes the pitcher is pretty good, sometimes it doesnt take much to just miss a ball." After having Thursday off, the Blue Jays now begin a nine-game homestand. For Tampa Bay, Fridays opener kicks off a stretch of 26 straight games against AL East foes. The Rays just dropped two of three at home to the Tigers this week, and following this series theyll continue their road trip with a four-game set at AL East leader Baltimore. On Thursday, Tampa Bay managed a 1-0 victory over Detroit despite just one hit for the game, an RBI triple by Brandon Guyer in the opening frame. From there, Tigers starter David Price went the distance and mowed down the final 23 Rays batters he faced in his return to Tropicana Field. But Tampa Bays Alex Cobb was the victor of this pitching duel, as he pitched seven scoreless innings and allowed only two hits while notching six strikeouts. "Really lived up to the billing, or the advertising prior to the game," Rays manager Joe Maddon said. "It just happened we won. ... I talk about it all the time. In order to beat a good pitcher, you have to outpitch him. In a very small and perverse way, we did." Maddon will give the ball to Drew Smyly for Fridays series opener. The left- hander tossed seven innings of two-run ball against the Yankees in his Rays home debut last week. It was the second straight outing he went at least seven frames after piling up nine strikeouts with no earned runs allowed at Texas in his previous start. For Toronto, Marcus Stroman looks to rebound from last Fridays start against the White Sox, in which he did not get out of the first inning. The right- hander coughed up five quick runs on five hits after going the distance against Detroit six days earlier. "Theres a lot of emotion that goes into this game, you want to do everything in your power to put your team in a position to win, and I did everything but that," Stroman said of his effort. In addition to the short outing, Stroman is coming off an extra two days rest. Toronto has a 6-4 edge over the Rays in the season series. Pittsburgh Pirates Gear . The time off didnt slow them down. Tyler Zeller scored a season-high 18 points and grabbed a career-best 15 rebounds, Kyrie Irving added 14 points and the Cavaliers pushed their winning streak to five games Tuesday night with a 114-85 victory over the skidding Philadelphia 76ers. Pirates Jerseys 2020 . Pospisil, the seventh seed, saved match points in each of the last two sets before falling to the unseeded Dutchman. "I wasnt very happy with the way I was playing,"said Pospisil. https://www.cheappiratesjerseys.us/ . Third-place Madrid fell behind and settled for a 2-2 draw earlier at Osasuna in a match both sides finished with 10 men, and Barcelona didnt let the chance escape. Barcelona, still without the injured Lionel Messi, again turned to Neymar after his hat trick against Celtic in the Champions League on Wednesday to convert a penalty on the half-hour mark and restore the lead in the 68th after Villarreal levelled. Fake Pirates Jerseys . It was well worth the wait. Manning and the Denver Broncos waited eight long months, then another 33 minutes to get the season started because of a lightning storm. Wholesale Pirates Jerseys . Dragic was a game-time decision because of a sore right ankle that had kept him out of Wednesdays loss at Utah, but played all but the last 10 seconds of the second half in the first 40-point game for a Phoenix player since Amare Stoudemires 44 on March 19, 2010.PLA DADET, France -- On the last of four Pyrenees ascents, Rafal Majka winked at a French TV camera and tugged playfully at a motorcycles antenna. Even this late in the Tour de France, the Polish rider made winning look easy as he took Stage 17 on Wednesday. For Vincenzo Nibali, the second ride in the mountains on Frances border with Spain was more serious. "The Shark" nibbled yet more seconds away from several of his closest challengers, and the yellow jersey that he has worn for all but two days of the race seemed to fit just a little more tightly ahead of the finish Sunday in Paris. Nibali was even businesslike with his own prime minister, imploring him not to get too ahead of himself in celebration. "Its true that I received a text message from Matteo Renzi, who invited me to Chigi Palace to celebrate my victory," the cautious Sicilian said about the premiers official residence. "I replied that only after winning -- if I do so -- Ill be able to say that Ill be present." The 124.5-kilometre (77-mile) trek Wednesday was the shortest stage in this years Tour. It covered three hard Category 1 ascents from Saint-Gaudens and a final push up to Pla dAdet ski station above the town of Saint-Lary-Soulan. Majka, who also won Stage 14 in the Alps, again showed hes the best climber in this Tour and tightened his grip on the polka dot jersey awarded to the races King of the Mountains. Giovanni Visconti got the action going on the last climb with a solo breakaway with about nine kilometres (5 1/2 miles) left, but could not hold off Majka. Visconti, who also is Sicilian, was second, 29 seconds back, and Nibali was third, 46 seconds behind. With a last Pyrenean day ahead Thursday, Majka could ensure that he takes the red-dot jersey home. His closest rival for it when the stage started was Spains Joaquim Rodriguez, who swatted the air in frustration at Majka when the Pole broke away on the last climb. Majka said he felt "comfort" in the last five kilometres in part because hed been saving up energy a day earlier by riding easier. He finished in a bunch 24 1/2 minutes behind Australian teammate Michael Rogers, who won Stage 16. By Wednesday, "I felt really, really good in the last climb," Majka said, after tapping his chest, thrusting his arms skyward and shouting in joy at the victory. "For me, when there are a lot of climbs, its the best." There was a time when seemingly effortless victories smacked of something more sinister at the Tour: the use of performance-enhancers. Few know the scars of cyclings doping past more than Majkas own manager at the Tinkoff-Saxo Bank team, Bjarne Riis. Once a national hero in Denmarkk after winning the 1996 Tour, he admitted to using blood-booster EPO more than a decade later -- and was vilified for it.dddddddddddd He laid low for a while, but then returned to the pro cycling world. "I promised Bjarne today that I would win the stage," said Majka. The echoes of doping resonated Wednesday on the grassy Pyrenean mountainside: The last times that Saint-Lary-Soulan hosted Tour stage finishes were in 2001 and 2005 -- won by Lance Armstrong and teammate George Hincapie. Those wins were later stripped because of doping. Their names have been crossed out in the official Tour history book. Cycling has made great strides in fighting doping with enhanced blood and urine testing, along with the biological passport program, but few experts would claim that the peloton today is entirely clean. Nibali, who has called himself a "flag-bearer of anti-doping", made his latest case to become the first Italian to win cyclings showcase race in 16 years -- since Marco Pantani, who was once convicted for doping. Nibali gained just under a minute on four of his closest rivals. Second-placed Alejandro Valverde of Spain, who made a valiant recovery on the last ascent to avoid even more damage, now trails by 5 minute, 26 seconds. The exception was Jean-Christophe Peraud of France, who hugged closely on the leaders back wheel and finished fourth. With his performance, the 37-year-old Frenchman made it an even closer race for the podium spots. He is fourth overall, 6:08 behind Nibali, but just eight seconds slower than fellow Frenchman Thibaut Pinot, in third. American Tejay van Garderen, in sixth, also lost about a minute to Nibali and trails by 10:19. It came a day after his hopes for a podium spot were dealt a big blow when he lost several minutes to the other aspirants for a top-three finish in Paris. "Yesterday was a pity, it was an off day," the BMC leader said. A podium spot is still possible, he added, "but it will be hard." Stage 18s finale in the Pyrenees takes the pack on a 145.5-kilometre (90-mile) loop from Pau to Hautacam, featuring two ascents that are so hard that they defy cyclings ranking system -- one of them an uphill finish. Then its a flat stage heading northward Friday before an individual time-trial a day later, and then whats likely to be the largely ceremonial ride for the yellow jersey in Stage 21 on Sunday to the Champs-Elysees in Paris for the finish of the races 101st edition. While well-positioned to be in yellow then, Nibali was still attacking Wednesday. "I preferred to go and gain a few more seconds and to be even more serene, just in case something could happen," he said. ' ' '