TORONTO — The Toronto Blue Jays continued their nice little roll with a relatively easy win over the defending World Series champions Wednesday night.
The Jays extended their winning streak to three games (tying a season high and now have the opportunity to win a series at home for the first time all season.
Here are three things that stood out to me about the Jays’ giant victory:
IN THE BIG INNING:
Rat-a-tat-tat went the Blue Jays’ bats in the very first inning, as they sent 11 men to the plate and scored six runs to pretty much put the game on ice right away.
It all started with Melky Cabrera hitting a ground ball in the hole between third and short and Giants’ third baseman Pablo Sandoval making a great play to reach out to his left and snare it, but threw the ball away.
Jose Bautista walked, and his teammates followed with three straight singles before Maicer Izturis hit a ground ball that would have been a double play had second baseman Nick Noonan been able to pull the ball out of his glove and make a throw to first. Instead, it was merely the first out of the inning — six batters in.
Three of the next four Blue Jays smacked RBI singles before Bautista lined hard to third to finally end the team’s biggest inning of the season so far.
MAGIC MELKY:
Cabrera celebrated receiving his 2012 World Series ring with a four-hit night against his former team, belting three singles and a double — all hard line drives.
He drove in a pair and scored twice, but showed the effects of a hamstring issue that has been plaguing him for weeks now. He was lucky to score on Edwin Encarnacion’s first-inning single, managing to do so only because Hunter Pence’s throw home was off-line.
Later on, Cabrera had a really hard time putting the brakes on going first-to-third on a Bautista single, and he wasn’t going to try for second on his fly ball off the right-field wall in the seventh until he saw the throw was coming home.
Cabrera will go for an MRI on his hamstring Wednesday afternoon, and one hopes that the news is good enough for him to continue to be able to play through it rather than having to spend some time on the disabled list.
He looked awful trying to get around the bases Tuesday night — not awful as in really slow (although he was), but awful as in he appeared to be in quite a bit of pain.
Melky’s hot streak has coincided with the current run which has seen the Blue Jays win six of their last nine. Over those nine games, Cabrera is hitting .410/.415/.615.
LINCOLN LOG:
The Blue Jays had the game in cruise control from pretty much that first inning on, with R.A. Dickey striking out 10 over six strong innings and the Jays adding on with a three-run rally in the sixth that started with two out and nobody on and saw them pick up five straight hits.
Brett Cecil came in and threw a perfect seventh, and John Gibbons gave the ball to Brad Lincoln to drive the bus on home with a seven-run lead. It was Lincoln’s first outing since coming in with two on and two out in the 10th inning in a tie game in Tampa Bay and walking both batters he faced to force in the winning run.
Lincoln got a couple of quick outs, then gave up a pair of hits, allowing a run to score before striking out Gregor Blanco to end the eighth.
In the ninth, he struck out the first two batters he faced and had the easy win in his grasp, but then walked Andres Torres and gave up a broken-bat single to Marco Scutaro. Pablo Sandoval was next, and he went deep for a three-run homer.
At that point, Esmil Rogers had to come in to bail him out, and the game was over two pitches later.
That’s two rough outings in a row for Lincoln — one with a lot of pressure on him, given the game situation, and one with absolutely none. With the Blue Jays looking to make room for an extra outfielder and to drop their bullpen back down to seven men, he may be the next one asked to make the drive back to Buffalo.