TORONTO – Breathing room isn’t a luxury the Toronto Blue Jays have enjoyed very much of lately. Since a 7-2 victory over the New York Yankees on April 13, only twice had they led by more than two runs, and never by more than four. Every game has been tight, tense and, more often than they’d like, filled with frustration. They were a team badly in need of an exhale even before all the drama triggered by Chris Colabello’s 80-game suspension for violating Major League Baseball’s drug policy.
That’s why Saturday afternoon’s 9-3 thumping of the Oakland Athletics was therapeutic on a number of fronts. J.A. Happ allowed just three runs over seven innings to give a tired bullpen a needed rest. Josh Donaldson’s seventh homer of the season, a three-run drive in the second inning, gave the left-hander some welcomed margin for error. Troy Tulowitzki, back in the lineup after taking a day to rest a sore hip, later pummelled a pair of solo shots for his first multi-homer game since joining the Blue Jays.
Most of all, with a new season-high in runs and their biggest margin of victory this year, it was comfortable. The game was firmly in their grasp once Donaldson’s drive opened up a 5-1 edge, their biggest lead since going up 5-1 on the Red Sox in Boston last Sunday.
“Today was more Toronto Blue Jays offence-like than what we’ve seen early on in the season,” said Donaldson. “Early on I felt like we had some really good at-bats, hitting the ball hard up the middle … and we didn’t really let up all day, we kept going and going and Tulo had a really nice day at the plate, [Ezequiel Carrera] had a couple of great plays and four knocks, that was huge. I felt like it was a total team effort up and down the lineup everybody did a great job contributing today.”
Also of note is the team-building exercise Happ engaged in to open the seventh, after Donaldson was hit in the leg by former teammate Liam Hendricks in the bottom of the sixth and glared at his former teammate. “Yeah, I do that most of the time when I get hit,” said Donaldson.
Regardless, Happ hit Khris Davis with his first pitch of the inning, leading to warnings for both dugouts by home plate umpire Paul Nauert. No more shenanigans followed, but Blue Jays batters no doubt noted how Happ had their backs.
“I don’t know,” is all Happ had to say on the matter.
Donaldson skirted questions about whether he thought Hendriks hit him intentionally, saying they got along well last season and that he can’t tell a pitcher’s intentions, but added, “I took my base and I don’t like getting hit, so it does piss me off a little bit, I’m not going to lie.”
Said Hendricks: “There was definitely no intention against Donaldson. I played with him last year, a great teammate, great guy, just a ball that slipped out and managed to get him pretty square.”
In collecting his third win of the season, Happ ended his team’s three-game losing streak and Oakland’s six-game win streak.
He settled down after giving up a Mark Canha solo shot in the first and subsequent single to Jed Lowrie, getting a pretty diving play by Donaldson on Davis’ grounder to escape the frame.
The Blue Jays put up a two-spot in the bottom half on Jose Bautista’s RBI groundout and Russell Martin’s infield RBI single, and might have had more if not for Lowrie making a nice pick on a Ryan Goins smash with the bases loaded.
Chris Bassitt wasn’t as fortunate in the second, as Kevin Pillar singled, Carrerra doubled for the second of his career-best four hits and Donaldson opened things up with his drive.
“We came out and looked ready to play from the get-go,” said Happ, who allowed seven hits and a walk over his seven innings. “That team’s hot right now, you can tell by their at-bats, putting the bat on the ball and seeing the ball well. So it was definitely a battle, but a good win.”
Happ gave up a two-out RBI single to Crisp in the fourth that made it 5-2 but Tulowitzki’s first homer of the day and third of the season came leading off the fifth. Bautista’s sacrifice fly in the sixth restored a made it 7-2 and after Josh Phegley’s two-out RBI single in the seventh, Tulowitzki’s second homer pushed the Blue Jays to a season-high eight runs. They’d score seven only twice.
“You never know with baseball,” Tulowitzki, who played down the hip soreness, said when asked if a breakout might be coming. “Sometimes you have that feeling, you go out and get one hit. We’ve definitely been grinding a little bit so it was good to see some smiles on guys’ faces and bottom line get a win and have a chance to win the series.”
The Blue Jays made it nine in the eighth when Carrera reached on an infield single, advanced to third on Marc Rzepczynski’s two-base throwing error and scored on a Donaldson single.
A crowd of 46,334 was already in a celebratory mode when Carrera made his second diving catch of the game to rob Davis of extra bases in the ninth. They cheered him, and a lopsided win, something that both they and their team became accustomed to last year, but has been rare so far this year.