TORONTO - First things first: Episode 3 of The Baseball Podcast is up for your listening pleasure. Toronto Star baseball columnist and TSN contributor Richard Griffin joins me for a half-hour of talk on manager John Gibbons strategy when it comes to his starting pitching and struggling bullpen, whether Brett Lawrie will see increased action at second base and Jose Bautistas great start to the season. Give it a listen here. GIBBONS LIKES HIS OFFENCE The Blue Jays entered Thursdays action with 166 runs scored in 34 games. Thats an average of almost 4.9 runs per game, good for fourth in the majors. Manager John Gibbons is in his seventh season, over two tenures skipping the Blue Jays. He believes this is the strongest offence hes had. "I would think this is probably the top," said Gibbons. "My last go around here we were really strong in the pitching department. We had some good offences but I dont think it equaled what we have here now. You need that in the American League. You need to be able to slug it out." Toronto boasts the league leader in on-base plus slugging percentage (OPS) and walks. Hes Jose Bautista. Bautista and Colby Rasmus, with nine home runs each, are amongst the league leaders. Melky Cabreras 48 hits are the most in the sport this season. As a team, the Blue Jays rank second in home runs (44); second in slugging percentage (.432) and third in on-base plus slugging percentage (.761). ENCARNACION DISCUSSES FRANCISCO General manager Alex Anthopoulos has credited Edwin Encarnacion with helping to lure Juan Francisco to the Blue Jays. "Ive known Juan from a long time ago, he was playing with me in Cincinnati," said Encarnacion. "When he was young, I was older in here and hes one of my best friends. He had a couple of more (options) to go so I called him and asked him to come here because they can give him the opportunity to play here at this level." Francisco, 26, hit 18 home runs last season while playing with the Braves and Brewers but was cut by Milwaukee late in spring training. He signed a minor league deal with the Blue Jays on April 2 and began the year at Triple-A Buffalo. His contract was selected on April 20 to replace Adam Lind, who went on the disabled list with a back injury. Aside from the opportunity the Blue Jays could afford him, Encarnacion was pressed Francisco to come to Toronto out of fear he would sign with another American League East team. The division, specifically the ballparks in the division, are friendly to power-hitting left-handed bats. "Thats why I dont want him to go to another team, like Tampa or another team," said Encarnacion. SANTOS STARTING FROM SCRATCH Sergio Santos pitched a scoreless eighth inning in Wednesdays 10-0 win over the Phillies. Thanks to the big lead it was a pressure-free inning. After two-straight outings featuring blown saves and three on the season, Santos is in the process of rebuilding his confidence. "It was nice to execute on the things that I wanted to do as far as locating my fastball, moving it in and out," said Santos. "It was nice. Its a nice first step, hopefully in the right direction." His stuff is good. Santos has struck out 18 hitters in 10 1/3 innings. The problem is hes walked nine and of the 12 hits hes allowed, three have been home runs. Santos expects more of himself. "Hopefully I can build off what happened (Wednesday) night and never look back again," he said. LAWRIE UPDATE Brett Lawrie took part in batting practice and fielded ground balls before Thursdays game. He left the fourth inning of Monday nights game in Philadelphia with lingering tightness in his right hamstring. Fridays game against the Angels may be more hopeful than reality. Lawries more likely to return on the weekend. John Cominsky Jersey . -- Crystal Webster avoided elimination at the 2013 Capital One Road to the Roar Olympic pre-trial curling tournament with an 8-5 win over Amber Holland on Thursday. Tony Gonzalez Youth Jersey . Hicham Khalouas late goal improved Almerias chances of avoiding relegation in a match dominated by contentious calls, including three penalties. One day after Barcelonas 4-3 win at Real Madrid featured three penalties, referees again dominated a wide-open game that saw Almeria ultimately move out of the relegation zone and one point ahead of Getafe which took its place. http://www.thefaclonsshoponline.com/Chri...falcons-jersey/. Subway workers in Rio de Janeiro, meanwhile, were holding an assembly to vote on whether they would strike to demand higher wages, threatening to disrupt transportation. By late Tuesday night there was no announcement of their decision. Atlanta Falcons Jerseys . To be fair, the celebrations are already anything but tame. Nerf ball tricks shots are just the tip of the iceberg for a group that has performed in zero gravity, faced pro-skateboarder Rob Dyrdek and an assembled team on the MTV series "Fantasy Factory", and even hit a basketball trick shot from a passing blimp. Steve Bartkowski Youth Jersey . On paper, it looks a little like Andre the Giant taking on a midget wrestler. It has all the makings of a rout with the Americans adding an eighth win in nine outings of this biennial event. The Yanks have eight players in the top 15 in the world while the Internationals have just one.New Zealand and South Africa were made to weather bruising onslaughts by France and Wales before launching their end-of-year European tours with victories as the autumn internationals began in earnest on Saturday. The All Blacks ended a 26-19 win in Paris camped on their own line and thankful for second-half tries by Charles Piutau and No. 8 Kieran Read to maintain their unbeaten record in 2013. The Springboks emerged 24-15 winners in Cardiff after making the most of limited possession to score tries through Jean de Villiers, Bismarck du Plessis and Fourie du Preez in a 14th straight victory over the Welsh since 1999. Australia completed a southern hemisphere sweep by crossing seven times to thrash Italy 50-20, while England blew hot and cold in beating Argentina 31-12 in preparation for the visit of New Zealand next weekend. Ireland outclassed injury-hit Samoa 40-9 in Dublin, and Scotland beat Japan 42-17 in Edinburgh. Also, Fiji defeated Portugal 36-13 in Lisbon, Georgia pipped Canada 19-15 in Tbilisi to remain undefeated against teams from the Americas, and Romania beat visiting Tonga 19-18 in their first meeting to round off an action-packed weekend. France-New Zealand contests rarely disappoint and this one was no exception, with the All Blacks dropping their level sufficiently to give the Tricolors a chance of an upset at Stade de France. The hosts went 12-9 up two minutes into the second half but Piutau raced onto a kick through, hacked on and grounded for a score that knocked the French cold in the 46th. And when Read ran onto Piutaus wonderful offload for a 64th-minute try, it looked all over at 26-12 but Brice Dulins score kept France within a converted try for the final 10 minutes. "Two proud nations, and there was no quarter given today," said New Zealand captain Richie McCaw, whose team need to beat England and Ireland to go through the year with a 100 per cent record. At the end of a full-blooded test in the Welsh capital, it was the same old story for the Six Nations champions. So often they come up short against the southern hemisphere juggernauts -- in Warren Gatlands five-year reign, they have won only once against a SANZAR team. The Springboks were ruthless when they got a sniff of the tryline, with De Villiers finishing off a length-of-the-field move started by Bryan Habana in the 11th minute and Du Plessis crossing from close range six minutes later. Leigh Hallfpenny kept Wales in the game with five penalties in a flawless kicking display but the hosts were hurt by game-ending, first-half injuries to prop Adam Jones and backs Jonathan Davies and Liam Williams.dddddddddddd Du Preez scored the killer try in the 65th following good work by Jaque Fourie and South Africa now heads to Scotland. "They had possession but its important what you do with it," De Villiers said. "Were not happy with the performance, it was a bit iffy, but were happy with the win." Nick Cummins (two), captain Ben Mowen, Tevita Kuridrani, Adam Ashley-Cooper, Joe Tomane and Israel Folau were the tryscorers in Turin for Australia, which scored 33 points without reply after a strong start by Italy. "I think a lot of things are back on track," said Australia coach Ewen McKenzie, whose sides Grand Slam bid was ended by England at the first hurdle. "It was a really good scoreboard for us particularly when we were 10-0 down. The guys worked through that and even in the end there we showed some character." Luke McLean, Lorenzo Cittadini and debutant Tommaso Allan crossed for Italys tries. The All Blacks visit Twickenham next and assessing Englands form going into that match is proving tricky. Following an inconsistent 20-13 win over Australia, Stuart Lancasters side was excellent in the first half against Argentina. Joe Launchbury, Billy Twelvetrees and Chris Ashton scored tries to set up a potential thrashing of a team that came to London with a new coach and off the back of six straight losses in the Rugby Championship. But there were errors aplenty after the interval by England, and the Pumas threatened to get back into the match through Nicolas Sanchezs penalties, only for replacement No. 8 Ben Morgan to crash through for a clinching fourth English try in the 78th. "Second half, we were a bit loose and it wasnt good enough overall. But I would have taken that scoreline this morning," Lancaster said. "Weve got to get that consistency for 80 minutes." Samoa had the opportunity to climb to an all-time high of fifth in the IRB rankings by beating Ireland, but the islanders injury-plagued side was dispatched in a record win in the fixture. The Irish only led 14-6 at halftime thanks to Peter OMahonys try but ran away with it in the final 40 with Sean OBrien, Dave Kearney (two) and Fergus McFadden grabbing tries. ' ' '