The Toronto Blue Jays exacted a measure of revenge for their home sweep at the hands of the Boston Red Sox last week by going to Fenway and dropping a ten-spot in the opener of a three-game set. By the time the sixth inning was done, the Jays had scored more runs on Labour Day than they did in the entire three-game series with the Bostons at Rogers Centre.
Here are some things that stood out to me about Toronto’s 64th win:
DR. LONGBALL COMES TO FENWAY
Red Sox starter Rick Porcello, the defending American League Cy Young Award winner, came into the game tied with Seattle’s Ariel Miranda for the major-league lead in home runs allowed this season with 35. The Blue Jays took full advantage of his long-ball tendencies and he left the game with the lead in that dubious category all to himself, 38.
Kendrys Morales got him first, with a no-doubt three-run homer to right field in the first inning that gave the Blue Jays the lead for good. It was Morales’ 26th home run of the season – with Justin Smoak’s solo shot off Matt Barnes in the top of the ninth, Morales and Smoak have combined for 63 homers, the most by any pair of switch-hitting teammates since Nick Swisher and Mark Teixeira hit 68 for the 2009 New York Yankees.
Raffy Lopez sent Porcello to the showers with a no-doubt two-run shot in the sixth, clearing the Jays’ right-field bullpen. It was his third homer in the Major Leagues and extended the lead to 7-2.
In between the two three-run shots, there was a rather significant solo homer in the fourth inning. Jose Bautista turned around a 94 mph Porcello heater and hit it out to dead centre at Fenway Park, his 21st home run of the season and his first since Aug. 11, when he took Jameson Taillon of the Pirates deep back at Rogers Centre.
Bautista went 88 plate appearances between big flies and over that span had just nine hits in 74 at-bats. He spent a week not being able to pull anything, but since his 0-for-4 Thursday night, every ball Bautista has put in play had been to the left of centre field, save one pop-up behind the plate, until his double into the right-field corner in the ninth.
BREAKOUT NIGHT FOR PEARCE
Steve Pearce got off to a terrible start to his Blue Jays’ career. Even with his big 4-for-4, two-homer night at Yankee Stadium to kick off the month of May, Pearce was hitting just .205/.256/.373 when he went down with a calf injury on May 14.
The big righty came off the disabled list just over a month later, and was one of the Blue Jays’ best hitters for more than two months, hitting .309/.386/.536 through his two-hit night against the Rays on August 24.
The Blue Jays came home after that game, but Pearce appeared to leave his swing on the road trip, going hitless in four straight games – an 0-for-17 run – before he doubled off Porcello in the first inning of the Jays’ game with the Red Sox on August 30.
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That hit didn’t snap Pearce out of his slump, though, and he carried a 3-for-39 into Monday night’s game at Fenway, where acting manager DeMarlo Hale placed him in the leadoff spot.
Pearce started the night with a ringing double off the Green Monster in left-centre, scoring on Morales’ homer. He singled in his next two at-bats on the way to his first three-hit night since the first game back after the all-star break.
HAPP STICKS AROUND
Given a three-run lead before he even threw a pitch, J.A. Happ was in trouble early in Boston, as he needed 10 pitches to retire the leadoff man, Eduardo Nunez, and threw 24 pitches in working around a two-out walk in the first inning.
He needed another 23 pitches to get out of the second, an inning that was extended first by Bautista having a Sam Travis fly ball go off his glove as he raced back to try to haul it in, and later by his own throwing error on what should have been an inning-ending double-play ball. The Red Sox wound up getting two runs on a two-out single by Nunez, but Happ got Mookie Betts to ground out to escape further damage.
With a high pitch count through just two innings, Happ needed badly to improve his efficiency in order to stay in the game much longer, and he did.
After using 47 pitches to get the first six outs, Happ got the next 11 outs on 58 pitches, allowing just two singles and a walk over the third, fourth and fifth innings combined before giving up back-to-back singles with two outs in the sixth and giving way to Dominic Leone, who allowed an RBI single on his first pitch before striking out Betts to end the inning.
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