TORONTO – Off the bat, Melvin Upton Jr.’s game-winning triple had all the makings of a bloop single.
Instead, the convergence of Max Kepler’s questionable decision making and Upton’s impressive speed allowed the Toronto Blue Jays to pull off an unlikely comeback against the Minnesota Twins.
With one out in the eighth inning and Kevin Pillar on second base, Upton flared a ball into shallow right field. Knowing that a single would allow Toronto to tie the game, Kepler dove for the ball, only to see it bounce past him all the way to the right field wall. Barely 15 seconds after making contact, Upton followed Pillar across the plate with the game-winning run.
“I saw him dive and I knew initially it’d be a triple once it got by him,” Upton said. “Rounding second base I saw Luis (Rivera, the third base coach) keep waving me and I just kept going.”
By the time he crossed home plate, the Blue Jays had completed a memorable comeback in front of a sellout crowd at Rogers Centre. Three outs later, the Blue Jays were 8-7 winners.
“That’s one part of our team that we don’t have a whole lot of, is team speed,” manager John Gibbons said. “That’s OK, but you add a guy like (Upton) it can make a huge difference.”
The Twins had a chance to hold Upton at third, but they were unable to come up with the ball in deep right field, possibly because they knew they were working with limited time. Either way, the rally assures the Blue Jays of another day atop the American League East. Now 73-56, they have a chance to sweep the Twins in Sunday’s finale.
“It’s what we needed, man,” said Jason Grilli, who provided yet another inning of scoreless relief. “The right man was running at that time, too. We had speed on the bases.”
Marcus Stroman‘s momentum slowed Saturday, as the Twins snuck ground ball after ground ball through the Blue Jays’ infield. Stroman’s season ERA climbed to 4.58 with five earned runs allowed, but he pitched better than his line would suggest since many of the nine hits he allowed were just out of the reach of Blue Jays infielders.
“To be honest I thought Stroman was good today,” Gibbons said. “It was one of those days they found just about every hole they could find.”
That’s going to happen on occasion if you’re as ground ball oriented as Stroman, who leads all MLB starters with a 60.9 percent ground ball rate. Generally speaking, those grounders end up in someone’s glove, but on days they sneak through, the opposition can rally in a hurry.
The Blue Jays ultimately scored enough to overcome the five runs Stroman allowed, and the two-run home run Trevor Plouffe hit against the recently-recalled Bo Schultz. They did most of their damage late, scoring two runs in the sixth on an Edwin Encarnacion home run and three more in the seventh, when Josh Donaldson and Encarnacion drove in runs with back-to-back singles that brought the Blue Jays within one.
“We’re confident,” Stroman said. “We’ve been the same way since spring training. Since last year. We’ve had the same mentality (and) pretty much same core group of guys.”
That group will be tested in the coming month, when the Blue Jays play much tougher opponents than the Twins, now losers of nine in a row. With plenty of AL East matchups on the horizon, the Blue Jays need to bank wins when they can.
“I just think all of (the games) are going to be this way from here on out,” Grilli said. “A win like that can get some good things going.”
