The Toronto Blue Jays’ bats remained stuck in neutral until the late-going Friday night, but a rare late rally gave the bullpen some breathing room in picking up for a brilliant Aaron Sanchez and the losing streak was snapped at three.
Pitching on two extra days’ rest, Sanchez bounced back from being roughed up by the Oakland A’s to spin seven brilliant innings in St. Petersburg. The young righty allowed just six hits and walked a pair while striking out six. He held the Tampa Bay Rays hitless in six at-bats with runners in scoring position.
The Jays’ bats, though, remained stalled, with only solo home runs from Michael Saunders and Josh Donaldson denting the scoreboard through the first six innings.
Lefty Drew Smyly, a Blue Jays’ nemesis since his days with Detroit, gave up naught but those two solo shots over six otherwise dominant innings. While Smyly was on the mound, the Blue Jays managed to hit only three balls on which an outfielder made a play – and on one of them, right fielder Steven Souza, Jr. had to call off second baseman Logan Forsythe.
There were seven pop-ups and eight whiffs among the 18 outs Smyly notched. The Blue Jays’ batting average on balls in play was .000 against the lefty. Among Smyly’s strikeout victims was Russell Martin. The Blue Jays’ catcher struck out on the 10th pitch of his first at-bat to set a club record. It was his eighth straight strikeout – the previous high (or maybe low) watermark of seven had been shared by Juan Francisco, Colby Rasmus and Alex Rios. Martin was dispatched again in his next at-bat to extend the Jays’ record to nine.
Martin faced Steven Geltz with two out in the seventh, smacked the first pitch he saw into right field for a line single and you could almost see the monkey sliding off his back as he made his way to first base. In his next trip, Martin hit a ground ball up the middle, but with the shift on it was fielded by Forsythe for the out.
In a departure from their 2016 form, the Blue Jays smacked the opposing bullpen around, adding three runs off Dana Eveland and Ryan Webb in the eighth inning to give their own ‘pen some extremely welcome breathing room.
Saunders went deep again, joining Martin and Matt Stairs as the only Canadians to have a multi-homer game as a Blue Jay, a couple of walks sandwiched around a Jose Bautista base hit led to a two-run single by Justin Smoak to really open it up and Ryan Goins even got in on the action. The Jays’ second baseman, mired in a 1-for-25 rut, belted his first home run of the season with two out in the ninth.
The insurance runs allowed manager John Gibbons to use both of his struggling short relievers in a low-leverage situation. Drew Storen started the bottom of the eighth and gave up a solo homer to Brad Miller before striking out Evan Longoria. Storen gave way to Brett Cecil, who got Corey Dickerson to ground out and struck out Souza. Roberto Osuna, who hadn’t pitched in four days, finished things up in the non-save situation.
After looking so awful in getting swept at home by the White Sox, the Blue Jays played just about as complete a game as they have all season. They go into their April finale against Chris Archer with a chance to finish this very disappointing month just a single game under .500.