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TORONTO -- When Blue Jays starter Brandon Morrow is on his game, his stuff can be electric and will often leave opposing hitters handcuffed. He displayed that dominant form in a solid six-inning performance Wednesday night as Toronto defeated the Houston Astros 7-3 at Rogers Centre. Morrow struck out nine batters as the Blue Jays (5-4) locked up their first series win of the young season and moved over the .500 mark in the process. The veteran right-hander was hitting the high 90s with his fastball and retired the first nine batters in order, fanning six along the way. "He was throwing the crap out of the ball ... he was using all of his pitches really (well) and he gave us a real shot to win the game," said Toronto catcher Dioner Navarro. The Blue Jays staked Morrow to an early two-run lead and gave him a 5-0 cushion after five innings. The Astros battled back with three runs in the sixth before Brett Lawrie of Langley, B.C., provided some insurance with a two-run shot an inning later for his first homer of the season. "They stung us there and battled back and got within reaching distance there, so it was good to put us back on top and put it out of reach later in the game," Lawrie said. Melky Cabrera, Maicer Izturis and Navarro had two hits apiece as Toronto outhit the Astros 10-6. Morrow (1-1) struck out the side in the first inning. The Astros didnt put a man on base until the fourth, when leadoff man Dexter Fowler walked and moved to third on Jason Castros one-out single. That didnt faze Morrow -- he struck out cleanup man Jose Altuve and fanned Chris Carter to get out of the jam. "He was throwing a lot of split-fingers and sliders and we were kind of fishing at them," said Astros outfielder Alex Presley. Morrow allowed five hits and three earned runs in his first quality start since May 5th, 2013. It was the first time he had struck out at least nine batters in a game since an 11-strikeout performance against the Minnesota Twins on Oct. 3, 2012. "I thought he was very aggressive tonight and he had that look about him too," said Toronto manager John Gibbons. "I mean he was confident, but thats what hes capable of doing ... its something to build off of." Torontos timely hitting and some poor defensive play by the Astros helped the Blue Jays score three runs in the fifth. Cabrera singled, stole second and scored on a single by Izturis. Jose Bautista walked and the runners advanced when Edwin Encarnacion grounded out weakly to the first-base side. After Adam Lind was intentionally walked to load the bases, Navarro hit a tailor-made double play ball to Matt Dominguez but the third baseman made an errant throw that allowed two runs to score. The Astros did all of their damage in the sixth inning. Fowler singled to centre and Presley followed with a two-run homer to deep right-centre field. Altuve tripled and scored when Carter grounded out. Encarnacion made a nice play at first base by short-hopping a chopper from Marc Krauss and stepping on the bag for the third out. In the bottom of the sixth, Ryan Goins reached on a walk but was later picked off by Williams. Gibbons came out to talk to the umpire but didnt challenge the call as the replays the Blue Jays saw were inconclusive. Triple-A callup Neil Wagner came on in the seventh inning and retired the Astros in order. Lawrie turned on a 2-1 pitch from Josh Zeid, who relieved Williams after he left the game due to a right groin strain. Toronto reliever Steve Delabar recorded one out in the ninth before taking a liner off his lower right leg. He limped off the field and was replaced by Esmil Rogers, who got the final two outs. Announced attendance was 13,569 and the game took three hours nine minutes to play. The Blue Jays will go for a sweep of the three-game series on Thursday night. Notes: Toronto ace R.A. Dickey (1-1) is scheduled to face Houston left-hander Dallas Keuchel (0-1) in the series finale. ... Before the game, the Blue Jays recalled Wagner from the Buffalo Bisons and optioned fellow right-hander Marcus Walden to the triple-A club. ... Izturis was moved from the No. 8 spot to the second position in the batting order. He went 2-for-3 to improve his batting average to .459. ... Toronto split a four-game series at Tampa Bay to open the season before dropping a weekend set to the New York Yankees. ... Delabar said he iced his leg after the game and would probably get the day off Thursday. ... Navarro stole a base in the seventh inning. It was his first steal since a game on Sept. 7, 2009 against the Yankees. Warren Sapp Jersey . Wearing bib No. 1, Maze skied through the gates cleanly to defend her big first-run lead and finish 0.07 seconds ahead of Anna Fenninger of Austria. Defending champion Viktoria Rebensburg of Germany was third, trailing 0. Alex Cappa Jersey . However, Therrien added that Galchenyuks status for next Wednesdays game against the Detroit Red Wings is questionable. Galchenyuk has been out since Jan. 6 with a broken right hand. http://www.cheapbuccaneersjerseyssale.com/?tag=bryan-anger-jersey-sale . Van Slyke drove in a career-high four runs with two homers off struggling left-hander Tony Cingrani, and the Los Angeles Dodgers pulled away to a 6-2 victory over the Cincinnati Reds on Monday night, a rare comfortable win in their pitching-dominated series. DeVante Harris Jersey . Hughes, 30, is a former Major Leaguer with the Baltimore Orioles, having played in 14 games with the Os in 2010. He played with Class AA Binghamton of the Eastern League in the New York Mets system last season. Jerel Worthy Jersey . The 25-year-old McIlroy, who is from Northern Ireland, was eligible to play for either Ireland or Team GB when golf makes its return to the Olympics in Brazil for the first time since 1904.With the game just past the half hour mark, Stoke winger Jonathan Walters sprinted towards the touchline, failed to keep the ball in play, and had to put his hands out to stop himself from going into the crowd. As he did so he picked up a cup from the fan in the front row and pretended to drink it. Unfortunately for the smiling Englishman the cup was empty. So, it seemed, was the wingers energy. Walters had been asked to play right wing at White Hart Lane in a 4-4-1-1 formation for Stoke, up against a Tottenham team that began in a 4-4-2 shape. His manager, Mark Hughes, had hoped that Walters could get forward to help out his solo front man, Peter Crouch, but instead he was being forced to play right back. One of the fittest players in the league looked exhausted. The reason? The supreme footballing intelligence of Tottenhams Christian Eriksen. Eriksen, asked to play left wing only when the opponents have possession of the ball, terrorized his opponent in possession, with outstanding movement and creativity. The Dane spent much of the match moving inside, the moment the ball drifted to the right side, and forced Stokes back four to get narrower and narrower, forcing Walters deeper. Stoke were bemused by Tottenhams shape and the free role given to Eriksen that hadnt been seen before in a Premier League match. System Much has been made of new head coach Tim Sherwoods tactical changes from previous manager Andre Villas-Boas, with a lot of the focus, rightly so, falling on Sherwoods decision to play two strikers up top together. Villas-Boas took charge of 16 Premier League games this season for Spurs and not once started with two forwards together. Sherwood has picked two up top from the start of every match he has managed so far. When he was questioned about that style after the FA Cup loss to Arsenal, he said: "A lots made of systems - 4-4-2, 4-3-3, whatever you want to call it - but its about passing the ball to your own team, keeping hold of it. Because whenever you lose the ball in transition, youre always going to be out of shape – otherwise youre going to be a rigid, boring team. So its about funnelling back in, shuffling across." Sherwood has now had seven post-match meetings with the media and the common theme in all of them has been his discussions about getting the ball to key players in key areas. At the top of this list is clearly 21-year-old Eriksen. When the former Ajax playmaker was brought to White Hart Lane at the end of August he was only Tottenhams 4th most expensive signing of the window; behind Erik Lamela, Roberto Soldado and Paulinho. The day he signed, Tottenham also revealed the capture of Argentine Lamela, for almost three times the amount of Eriksen. If Tottenham wanted to keep the Dane under the radar, captured at a discount because his contract was close to expiring, they were certainly doing a good job at it. Eriksen made his debut in Tottenhams fourth game of the season, at home to Norwich, and the team had yet to score a goal from open play. The playmaker took 28 minutes to do what Tottenham couldnt do in 270, putting a perfectly weighted pass in to Gylfi Sigurdsson who opened the scoring. In the second half, Eriksen found himself in his office - the central space outside the penalty box - when he switched the play brilliantly to Paulinho on the right side. It was the kind of pass that most players wouldnt have even seen but seconds later Tottenham extended their lead when Sigurdsson tapped home the Brazilians cross at the back post. When he was taken off after 71 minutes, Eriksen got a standing ovation from his new fans. "It was a great debut for Christian, he is a pure number 10, a creative player and his individual quality made all the difference," said Villas-Boas after the match.Eriksen would start the next three games but with the side struggling to score goals he found himself on the bench following the October international break. The Dane played just 34 minutes in matches against Aston Villa, Hull and Everton, with Lewis Holtby starting all three games as AVBs pure number ten. Eriksen returned for the home loss against Newcastle and it would be his final appearance for Villas-Boas before he got injured playing for Denmark. When he was fit to return, Tottenham had a date at Southampton and Sherwood was now the boss. Eriksen was back but not as pure number ten, instead, asked to play in a central midfield role in a 442. It was Sherwoods attempt to get the playmaker in the side alongside Soldado and Emmanuel Adebayor, who started hhis first league game of the season and scored twice in a 3-2 win.dddddddddddd It was a brave decision from Sherwood, who at the time was still auditioning for the job. The next day Sherwood was given an 18-month contract in charge of Spurs, four days later they drew 1-1 against West Brom, with Eriksen scoring a free kick, again playing central midfield. The games were coming thick and fast and with little time to work on anything as the head coach reflected after the draw against the Baggies: ""We could have done with a bit more guile around the penalty area, but overall I think well improve, its been difficult because we havent been able to have too much instruction to the boys in training, because of the amount of games, its been hectic, its a new voice, we are asking them to play a slightly different manner and hopefully theyll get better and better at it." Finding the forwards Sherwood needed to find a way for his team to get that guile while still maintaining the shape he was working with them on. Two days after the win against West Brom, he made the slight change over Eriksens positioning for the Stoke game. Tottenhams final game of 2013, with Eriksen in his new role, would turn out to be their best performance of the season as they seemed to solve the biggest problem Tottenham have had this season; getting service to Soldado, a man signed for 26 million pounds in the summer. The Spaniard received just 320 passes in the 13 starts he made under Villas-Boas, an average of just 24.6 per game. Against Stoke, Sherwood specifically asked his forwards to stretch their attack, with Soldado moving out to the right to connect with Aaron Lennon and Adebayor doing the same on the left to connect with Eriksen, with full backs on both wings creating overlaps when they can. Tottenham looked like a completely different side with both forward heavily involved. "The coach has told us to play more free," Eriksen said afterwards"We have seen that in the games he was been in charge of. He said it looked like we were a little bit afraid (before)."He said we shouldnt be afraid. He said we should just play and see that we are good. If we dare we have a really good team and really good chances."I think what you see now is how we should play." 2014 Since the turn of the New Year, Sherwood has stuck to his system and Eriksen has been the main reason for its success. At Old Trafford he was the outlet in his own half when Spurs countered, starting the move, sprinting into space on the right and providing a cross for Adebayor to head home. In the second half, for the second goal, Soldado came deep to help with Lennon, who sprinted on and found Eriksen, ahead of both strikers, drifting off the left flank to head home at the back post. On Saturday, at home to Crystal Palace, after a very poor first half from Spurs, Eriksen was the spark they need when he recognized a long cross field ball needed to be played by right back Kyle Naughton towards Adebayor, and the moment the ball came towards the striker, the Dane ran into the space created by his team-mate and smashed home the games first goal. His movement inside from the flank had confused another defence. Eriksen, like Spurs, had not been at his best that day but, at a time when it was needed, had the intelligence and skill required to make the difference. Despite the three points, the performance again raised eyebrows, specifically around Soldado, who was ineffective again despite having more creativity around him. Their remains a number of question marks over Tottenhams new system under Sherwood. Can whoever plays as the central midfield two do enough to cover the gaps in front of the centre backs and combine with the attack, specifically against teams better than Stoke and Crystal Palace? Will Eriksen still be influential in the role if left-sided Mousa Dembele isnt playing in midfield? How much more patience will Sherwood have with Soldado? And will Eriksen remain a left sided option even when others such as Nacer Chadli have come on to replace a striker, like he has in past matches. What should no longer be a question is Eriksens place in the team, no matter where he is asked to play. Sherwoods Tottenham will inevitably go through a difficult patch at some point during the second half of the season but what the versatile Danish star has shown in the last month is that he should be the first name written on the team sheet. Dont expect to see him benched for anyone again. This is a Premier League star in the making. 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