It wasn’t the greatest comeback in franchise history, but it was the next-best thing. The Blue Jays, offence sputtering horribly and having just been swept in the Bronx, spotted the Cincinnati Reds an 8-0 lead before getting up off the mat to pull off the improbable win.
The Blue Jays scored 14 runs in the game — nearly twice as many as the eight they scored in their entire three-game series against the Yankees, and also more than the 13 runs they scored in splitting a four-game series in Baltimore. They hit four home runs in the game — more than they’d hit in their last nine games combined! And it was the first time they’d scored as many as six runs in a game since June 4, a span of over two weeks.
It might not have been strictly revenge, but the majority of the damage was done by Blue Jays who used to wear the red pinstripes of baseball’s first-ever professional team. Edwin Encarnacion and Juan Francisco both got their starts with the Reds: Francisco signed as a 17-year-old out of the Dominican Republic in 2004 and Encarnacion (because he went to high school in Puerto Rico) was drafted in the ninth round four years earlier.
Both were young, slugging third basemen for Cincinnati and both were shipped out. Francisco was traded to Atlanta for reliever J.J. Hoover, who was going to be the Reds’ closer when they thought Aroldis Chapman’s future was in the rotation. Decent baseball trade, not so for the one that sent Encarnacion packing.
When the Reds were talking trade with the Blue Jays for Scott Rolen in 2009, Toronto was very interested in minor-league righty Zach Stewart (one of Cincy’s best pitching prospects) and also liked reliever Josh Roenicke. They had no interest at all in Encarnacion, but the Reds insisted the Blue Jays take him and the more than $6 million owed to him through 2010. They wouldn’t make the deal if Toronto didn’t take Encarnacion off their hands and though the Blue Jays balked at first, they wanted Stewart enough that they held their nose and made the deal.
Friday’s series opener was the first game Encarnacion ever started against the team that drafted him and eventually couldn’t wait to get rid of him, and he made them pay. A three-run home run with two out in the third inning got the Blue Jays’ bats started, and another three-run HR with two out in the ninth inning was the killing blow, turning a two-run lead into five. The homers were Edwin’s third and fourth of the month of June, but his second and third in the span of six at-bats. They also gave him a total of 23 on the season, good enough for the major-league home run lead.
Francisco didn’t have as many opportunities for revenge as Encarnacion, but he came off the bench with two out in the seventh, a runner on and the Blue Jays down three, and he took fireballer Jumbo Diaz into the seats for his 12th home run of the season. It was only Francisco’s fifth hit in his last 13 games (he’s 5-for-32, hitting .156), but it was the fourth of those five that has gone for extra bases. The Big Juan doesn’t often get hits, but when he does, they go a long way.
The opposite-field jack got the Blue Jays back within one, and another ex-Red, Dioner Navarro, tied things up with a two-out RBI double in the 8th. No revenge fantasy for Navarro, though — he credits the time he spent with the Reds in 2012 (specifically, with Joey Votto) for putting his bat on the road to recovery enough that he could resume a big-league career as a full-time player.
As many things as the Blue Jays had been doing wrong over the last two weeks that saw them lose nine of 12 (and that they continued to do wrong over the first two innings Friday — failing to turn a double play in the first, Navarro whiffing on a fastball down the middle for a passed ball that set up a bloop RBI double), the tide started to turn after the first Encarnacion bomb and the Blue Jays started to get things right.
Including that first Encarnacion homer, 10 of the 14 runs the Blue Jays scored came as a result of two-out hits, and there was another on a two-out bases-loaded walk to Jose Bautista. Two pinch-hitters were sent to the plate and both delivered run-scoring hits — Adam Lind had an RBI single to go with Francisco’s homer. The defence showed up huge when it needed to with Munenori Kawasaki making a tremendous diving stop up the middle to rob Skip Schumaker of what would have been a two-out RBI single in the seventh inning that would have given the Reds an insurance run right after the Blue Jays had closed to within one.
As well, the pitching picked it up when the defence didn’t. In the sixth, with the Blue Jays still down by four, speedster Billy Hamilton reached with one out on a ground ball that Kawasaki simply booted. Hamilton had already stolen one base in the game, and had designs on more, but Chad Jenkins never gave him the chance — getting Todd Frazier to pop up to shallow centre on the next pitch, then retiring Votto on a grounder to first on the pitch after that.
Tremendous bullpen work was involved in the win, as well. It had to be to hold the Reds at bay after they’d run out to the eight-run lead. After giving up a two-run double and a two-run homer in that ugly second inning, Todd Redmond provided three further innings of one-hit relief, then Jenkins, Dustin McGowan and Casey Janssen combined to give up just one more hit over the final four innings without issuing a walk.
The Blue Jays could have easily packed up after that eight-run frame and given it the old “we’ll get ’em tomorrow,” especially given how the last two weeks had gone. But they got up off the mat, had great at-bats, and pulled off something they’d only been able to do one other time in the history of the franchise. Blue Jays fans still remember that June 4, 1989, game at Fenway Park, when Ernie Whitt hit a Grand Slam in the ninth to bring the Jays all the way back from a 10-0 deficit. Will they remember Friday night’s comeback in Cincinnati 25 years hence? Maybe, if the magic that’s kept the Jays atop the AL East thus far continues.