TORONTO -- This time, the seventh inning was a breeze for R. Custom Rams Jerseys .A. Dickey. The veteran Toronto knuckleballer, who had made it through six innings in his previous six starts but each time failed to get out the seventh, turned in his strongest performance of the season Saturday, going 8-1/3 innings as the Blue Jays defeated the Oakland Athletics 5-2 at Rogers Centre. "I feel like Ive been right on the edge of a game like this for a long time," said Dickey, who gave up five hits, struck out four and only walked one in improving to 5-4. "Thats whats been encouraging. "Thankfully today, I was able to break through the seventh and get into the eighth and ninth." Dickey received a standing ovation from 29,372 fans when he left with one out and two on in the ninth. The As made it interesting, getting the tying run to the plate in that final at-bat but Brett Cecil got Jed Lowrie on a sacrifice fly and struck out Alberto Callaspo for his third save and Torontos fifth straight win. The win moved the Blue Jays 2.5 games up on the Baltimore Orioles and New York Yankees atop the American League East. The last time Toronto was alone in first place this late in the season was July 6, 2000. Dickey, who won the 2012 National League Cy Young Award with the New York Mets, lowered his earned run average to 3.95, the first time its been under 4.00 since he joined the Blue Jays in 2013. "Its great for our team to be able to keep the momentum that weve been generating over the past week-and-a-half or so," said Dickey, who retired 19 of 21 hitters he faced at one stretch. "Its nice to feel like you did your part in that." "He was dealing it," said Toronto manager John Gibbons. "He really was. He was strong. He was very efficient. That particular pitch he throws, when its on its tough to do anything with it. "You can usually tell early on when hes got his good one going and today he did." Brett Lawrie had a home run for the Blue Jays while Melky Cabrera had two hits and two RBIs, and Jose Reyes had a pair of hits as Toronto (28-22) won for the 10th time in their last 12 ball games. They did their damage on Jesse Chavez (4-2), who gave up four runs, two of which were unearned, and eight hits. The Blue Jays used their speed and took advantage of some sloppy defence from Oakland (30-19). "We generated some runs today," said Gibbons as Reyes scored twice from second on balls that never left the infield and Anthony Gose plated from first on a bobble in left field. "The old saying is speed never goes in slumps." After Oakland opened the scoring in the second inning on a Yeonis Cespedes solo home run to straightaway centre field, the Blue Jays tied it up in the third. Gose, who reached on a fielders choice, was moving first to third on Cabreras two-out, opposite field single when left-fielder Craig Gentry bobbled the ball, allowing the fleet-footed Gose to fly around third and slide into the plate ahead of the throw. Toronto took the lead for good with three runs in the fifth. After Lawrie led off the inning by slamming his eighth home run into the Blue Jays bullpen to make it 2-1, they added some insurance, again courtesy of speed and shoddy defence by the As. Gose slapped a sharp single the other way with one-out and moved up to third on a single by Reyes. After a wild pitch advanced Reyes to second, Cabrera hit a ground ball to first baseman Brandon Moss, who booted it as Gose was coming in to score and then flipped it past a covering Chavez, which allowed Reyes to scamper home, punctuating the run with a run head-first slide, making it 4-1. Reyes repeated the feat in the seventh to put the Blue Jays up 5-1. After a lead-off double, he scored all the way from second when Cabrera hit a routine groundball to shortstop but the As made the play too slowly, again allowing Reyes to slide across home plate head-first before Moss could throw him out. "Thats the way I play the game when Im healthy," said Reyes, who spent the early part of the season on the disabled list with a hamstring injury. "Stealing bases. Sliding all over the place. "When Im pain-free Im able to do that stuff, so Im feeling happy. Not only for me, but for the whole team because were playing really good baseball. Its always fun when youre winning." Toronto will go for the three-game sweep of the A.L. West leaders on Sunday afternoon. Notes: The Blue Jays and As wrap up a three-game weekend series on Sunday when Oakland LHP Drew Pomeranz goes against Toronto LHP J.A. Happ. . . Going into Saturdays game, Torontos Edwin Encarnacion led the league in May with 11 home runs and 62 total bases and is second in RBIs with 24 and T2 with 16 extra-base hits in 22 games. . . Since 2010, the Blue Jays lead the Majors with 553 home runs prior to the all-star break, well ahead of the New York Yankees, who are second with 489. Authentic Los Angeles Rams Jerseys .A. Dickey, even though he was coming off a Cy Young Award in 2012. Many felt the Jays would regret giving up righthanded pitcher prospect Noah Syndergaard and catcher Travis DArnaud over the long haul. Stitched Los Angeles Rams Jerseys . In the days leading up to the draft, TSN.ca and TSN Radio basketball analyst Duane Watson looks at some of the names that will be headlining the event. Tonight, Michigans Nik Stauskas of Mississauga, Ontario. http://www.ramscheap.com/ . The triple gold medallist from the 2010 Paralympics tweeted on Tuesday: "Woke up with a virus yesterday. Timing couldnt be much worse. Not the ideal prep for the .NEW YORK -- Baseball players and management hope to reach a new drug agreement this week that would increase initial penalties for muscle-building steroids and allow a decrease of suspensions for some positive tests caused by unintentional use, people familiar with the negotiations told The Associated Press. For future suspensions, the deal also would eliminate the loophole allowing Alex Rodriguez to earn almost $3 million during his season-long ban, the people said. They spoke on condition of anonymity in recent days because talks are ongoing. The sides hope to reach an agreement by Sunday, when the Los Angeles Dodgers open the U.S. portion of the major league schedule at the San Diego Padres. While the lengths have not been finalized, a person involved with the talks said Wednesday the most likely penalties would be about 80 games for an initial testing violation and a season-long ban for a second. "It will be a significant deterrent because players will know theyre not going to just easily walk back into a lineup," Travis Tygart, chief executive officer of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, said in a telephone interview. "It probably is the best policy in professional sports." For use of a limited group of substances, the sides were discussing giving the arbitration panel that hears appeals grievances the authority to reduce suspensions by as much as 50 per cent if the player proves the positive test was caused by unintentional use, the person said. "What were all here for it to rid sports of the intentional cheats, those who are intending to defraud both the fans and their fellow teammates, the integrity of competition," Tygart said. "You want to have provisions in place that allow for whether theres an inadvertent or a truly non-intentional situation which may arise." Since the 2006 season, the Major League Baseballs drug agreement has called for a 50-game suspension for a first positive steroids test, a 100-game ban for a second and a lifetime penalty for a third. Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig called for tougher penalties last March, and then-union head Michael Weiner said players would consider them for 2014. Weiner died in November and was succeeded by former All-Star Tony Clark, who has led the negotiations. Major League Baseballs investigation of the Biogenesis of Amerrica anti-aging clinic led to 14 suspensions last summer, including a 65-game penalty for former NL MVP Ryan Braun of Milwaukee and a 211-game ban for Rodriguez, which was reduced to 162 games in January by an arbitrator. Los Angeles Rams Jerseys Outlet. The section covering violations not related to positive tests, which was used by Selig in the Biogenesis case, will be clarified but still will allow discipline for "just cause." Many players have advocated stiffer penalties as a deterrent. Arizona pitcher Brad Ziegler spoke out after Jhonny Peralta, who served a 50-game suspension, agreed in November to a $53 million, four-year contract with St. Louis. "We thought 50 games would be a deterrent. Obviously its not. So we are working on it again," he tweeted then. "It pays to cheat... Thanks, owners, for encouraging PED use." Some players said suspensions should lead to larger monetary losses. San Diego Padres outfielder Will Venable maintained last summer "somehow having to forfeit or void your contract that youre under is something that needs to be the main focus of the penalties." But for the majority of players, that would go too far. "Id venture to guess that even though there are concerns on a number of levels, that we will never end up in a world where player contracts are voided as a result," Clark told the AP during a January interview. Addressing positives caused by inadvertent use was a factor in the talks. Philadelphia infielder Freddy Galvis was suspended for 50 games in June 2012 for a Clostebol Metabolite, which he later claimed was contained in a foot cream he used. Reliever Guillermo Mota, then with San Francisco, was suspended for 100 games in May 2012 after taking a cough syrup with Clenbuterol. The new deal also will state that a player receives none of his salary during a season-long suspension. The current deal said a player loses as many days pay as games he is suspended. Since players are paid over a 183-day season this year, arbitrator Fredric Horowitz ruled Rodriguez was entitled to 21-183rds of his $25 million salary, or $2,868,852. "Thats fantastic," Tygart said. "You hit them in the pocketbook, and thats really where the cheaters are most deterred from attempting to steal money from the other players." 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