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TORONTO - There shouldnt have been any lingering doubt. If there was, Jose Bautista put it to rest on Monday night. He should be considered among the Blue Jays all-time greats and, one day, his name will be unveiled along the fourth deck façade as part of the Level of Excellence. Bautistas three-run home run in the fifth inning of an 8-0 win over the Cubs was his 200th as a Blue Jay, putting him into elite company. He joins Carlos Delgado (336), Vernon Wells (223), Joe Carter (203) and George Bell (202) as one of five Blue Jays in the franchises 200-home run club. "Its obviously a great personal accolade," said Bautista. "I wasnt aware of it but somebody told me and came up to me today. Im very proud and honoured to have done it here, just really happy but I think Im going to enjoy this one, again like I always say with personal goals, more in the offseason. We have a bigger goal that were focusing on right now and thats trying to make the playoffs." Mondays home run was Bautistas 32nd of the season and his eighth in the last 12 games. Bautista hit his 200th Blue Jays home run in his 791st game with the club, 55 quicker than the next fastest, Delgado. STROMANS SINKER Marcus Stroman notched his first career major league shutout in Monday nights 8-0 win over the Cubs. He needed only 93 pitches and he recorded a career-high 14 groundball outs, including one double play. Stroman faced two batters over the minimum. His sinker, developed since he arrived in the major leagues, gets the credit. "It allows me to go deep into games," said Stroman. "I used to be a high-pitch guy. Five innings, six innings, a ton of pitches and high punch outs and now I feel like Im really learning how to pitch. Using that pitch Im able to go deeper, keep the ball on the ground. Im able to get double plays when I need them and I feel like Im just really starting to learn how to pitch." Stroman was lying in bed, a baseball in hand, when he came across the grip. It felt comfortable and so he took it into a bullpen session. It wasnt long before he was using his sinker in game action. He points to his July 19 start versus Texas, a 4-1 Blue Jays win in which he went seven shutout innings, as the turning point. "That just shows you what hes all about," said manager John Gibbons before the game. "Hes got some aptitude. Hes an athlete. Hes got a feel of what hes doing … Thats what the good ones are able to do. The guys that struggle, sometimes it takes them a little bit longer to figure things out." CHATTING WITH RIZZO The Chicago Cubs are a team in transition. When Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer were hired during the offseason of 2011-2012, they set out to strip the franchise bare and rebuild it. The plan is taking shape. The next step: execution. Anthony Rizzo and Starlin Castro have been joined by top prospects Javier Baez, Jorge Soler and Arismendy Alcantara. Kris Bryant and Addison Russell, the latter acquired from Oakland in the Jeff Samardzija trade, did not receive September call ups but arent far behind. The Cubs have one of the best crop of prospects if not in history, than certainly in recent memory. TSN.ca sat down with Rizzo, the injured Cubs first baseman. Hes hit career highs with 30 home runs and an OPS of .889 in 2014. Still only 24 years old, hes signed long-term and figures to be at the core of the expected turnaround. Heres the conversation: TSN.ca: Is there a sense of excitement about how close you guys may be to turning that corner? RIZZO: Yeah, absolutely. Obviously we dont want to say we think weve turned it but its just about guys developing here, going through their highs and lows and going into the offseason feeling really good about themselves and what they have to work on and going into spring training really with the attitude of winning our division and taking care of business. TSN.ca: What are your initial impressions, I dont want to call you one of the veterans, of some of the younger players? A kid like Soler? And Baez? RIZZO: Theyve been great. The most you from them is to come in and work and thats what they do. They dont really come in and mess around. They come in, do their work and take care of their business. Thats the best thing you can do as a young player and Im still young, I do that, but the best thing you can do is take care of your business and play hard. Thats how you earn the respect of your teammates and theyve done exactly that. All the guys that have come up have done that. TSN.ca: On a lot of teams youd be a younger player but you have some tenure here. Is your role on this team different than it would be in a lot of other cities just because it is such a young group? Are you more of a leader already than maybe you would have anticipated? RIZZO: I dont know. This is where I am. On other teams I dont know how its been. I just know here we have a good bunch of guys here, a good group. I just go out and play. Play hard and try to produce as best I can and prepare to be the best I can that day and whether I do well or dont do well I try to come in and be the same guy in the clubhouse and set the example, set the bar high for everyone else. TSN.ca: Shortly after the Samardzija trade, you told me in July you could see the plan falling into place. Thats still the case? RIZZO: Its been really nice in having Javy (Baez) come up and Soler come up. Mendy (Alcantara), (Kyle) Hendricks and all the guys. You hear about people talk about so much this, this, this and now that its here its about them getting their feet wet with the expectation of next year doing some damage in this league. TSN.ca: Is your pitching underrated. Everybody says youve got a bunch of positional talent, wheres the pitching? If you look at your team ERA I think over the last four or five weeks, especially, its been really strong. RIZZO: Yeah, our bullpen has really come along, in my opinion. Theres no guy in our bullpen that comes and were kind of worried about giving up a lead. Thats always comforting, knowing a starter can go six or seven and then get it to the bullpen and have them shut it down. As long as we score runs, it doesnt matter whos pitching, we score a couple of runs early for them and let the pitcher get into a little groove, itll take care of itself. TSN.ca: Your first time in Toronto, your first time in Canada. You going to climb the Tower? RIZZO: Well, Im not going to be playing so Im probably definitely explore and probably go up the Tower. Cheap Air Force 1 Just Do It . PAUL, Minn. Nike Tanjun Ireland .C. -- Only two Syracuse teams have won their first 20 games, and C. http://www.airforce1shoesireland.com/air-force-1-white-wholesale-ireland.html . Duhamel, from Lively, Ont., and Radford, from Balmertown, Ont., were second with 77.01 points, just behind Olympic bronze medallists Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy of Germany. The four-time world champs lead at 79. Cheap Nike Roshe Two Cheap Air Force 1 Black . The injury will keep the Finnish forward out of the Olympics. The 29-year-old has 20 goals and 41 points in 56 games this season, his first with Tampa Bay.There’s a good chance that on Thursday a Canadian will be picked first overall in Major League Soccer’s SuperDraft. UCONN forward Cyle Larin won’t be in Philadelphia for the draft, as he is currently away with Canada’s U-20 national team trying to qualify for this summer’s FIFA U20 World Cup, but the 19-year-old from Brampton is widely projected to be a top two pick. Orlando City holds the first-overall selection in the SuperDraft with fellow expansion club New York City FC picking second ahead of Montreal Impact in third. Toronto FC holds three first-round picks, starting with number six, and Vancouver Whitecaps are 13th in line. On this week’s TSNFC podcast, we were joined by Bobby Smyrniotis, the Technical Director for Sigma FC, the academy where Larin developed his talents from the age of 11. Smyrniotis has been at the MLS Combine in Florida over the past few days where he has had conversations with staff of both Orlando and New York about Larin. Larin finished his UConn career with 23 goals in 39 games and was named American Athletic Conference Rookie of the Year in 2013. This year he was named AAC Offensive Player of the Year. So what makes him stand out? “He’s a rare blend of a big number-nine striker who has got soft feet and is very technical,” said Smyrniotis. “I think what makes him alluring for many of the clubs here in MLS is that he blends the physical attributes with being a very intelligent footballer.” “As a number nine he has the ability to score in and around the box from a variety of manners, whether he is beating players or whether it’s with service from the outside, his aerial game is very good, Smyrniotis continued. The other thing that people see in him is his hold-up play. He’s very good at bringing the ball down and having defenders around him and that helps a team that wants to play with a point man up top.” Despite just leaving college, Larin is no stranger to the professional game, having spent time training with a number of European clubs over the last couple of years including Genk and Club Brugge in Belgium and Hertha Berlin, Wolfsburg and Werder Bremen in Germany. There had been some speculation that Larin would leave college a year early and join the class of the 2014 SuperDraft, but with another year under his belt, Symrniotis is confident the Canadian teenager has all of the qualities needed to deal with the pressure of being a very high draft pick. “He’s got the right mentality for it,” said Smyrniotis. “He has been iin some good environments in the past and over the last year getting called up to the senior national team with Benito Floro has helped him a lot.dddddddddddd He has been over training with some European clubs, so he has had a taste of the pros and I think that will prepare him for what is coming in the next couple of weeks.” “He is a very level-headed young man. That is something we try and work at with young players – the mental coaching aspect of things, making sure the players don’t get too high and don’t get too low, Smyrniotis went on. There’s a long process involved in things and there will be a lot of ups and downs as a pro and I think he has been well prepared for that. His name has been talked about a lot in the media, but he usually stays away from that and is unaware of a lot of it and I think that’s a good thing on his part.” Smyrniotis feels that Larin could be a quick study in the MLS. “I think it comes down to where he may go, or what the exact needs of that club will be, he said. From a technical aspect he will definitely need a couple of months to get his feet wet, but I think it will be a quicker transition than a slower one.” Larin isn’t the first product from Sigma Academy to head into the MLS SuperDraft. Two years ago, Kyle Bekker and Emory Welshman were both picked in the first round by Toronto FC. Smyrniotis has been to every MLS Combine since 2008 and has been impressed with the standard of players on show this time around. “It’s been a relatively good combine, he said. Some of the top players are missing, such as Cyle who is down in Jamaica, but what is important to note in talking with the MLS teams is that they still take this very seriously. A lot of MLS teams now have USL PRO teams as their reserve teams, so they will have a legitimate place for some of these players to keep on developing, instead of them just being released in a few weeks - that has been one of the big issues in the past.” It promises to be an exciting few days for Larin as he continues to play a role in Canada’s quest to qualify for the 2015 U-20 World Cup in New Zealand and also gets to find out where he will begin his pro career. He could end up in Orlando, playing alongside Brazilian star Kaka, or in New York, where he could learn off NYCFC’s star striker David Villa. Whatever the outcome, Larin seems capable of playing a major role for club and country in the years to come. Click here to listen to the latest edition of the TSNFC podcast ' ' '