TORONTO, Ont. – The Blue Jays continued their strong run at home of late by pasting their divisional rivals from Baltimore in the opener of a four-game series. Toronto has won six of their last seven at Rogers Centre as they continue their long, slow climb back to the .500 mark.
Here are three things that stood out to me about the game:
PHENOM SHMENOM
The Orioles were very excited to give the ball to 22-year-old Kevin Gausman for his major-league debut, and the Blue Jays were thrilled to hand him his first big-league loss.
The baby-faced righty, drafted fourth overall just 11 months ago, showed some incredible stuff with a fastball that sat comfortably at 95-96 M.P.H. for his entire outing and touched 99. Gausman also showed off a big-time change-up, and he looked pretty terrific in his first trip through the Jays’ lineup, allowing just a pair of singles.
The Blue Jays got to Gausman the next time through. Well, at least Adam Lind and J.P. Arencibia did. They led off the fourth with back-to-back doubles – Arencibia’s coming on the first pitch. A bunt single by Brett Lawrie followed and Gausman then walked Colby Rasmus to load the bases with nobody out, but a botched suicide squeeze and an atom ball by Melky Cabrera resulted in the Jays scoring only one more run in the inning.
Lind and Arencibia struck again the next inning, though. This time Lind belted a single over the shortstop with two out and nobody on and Arencibia crushed Gausman’s next pitch over the left-field wall to give the Jays the lead for good.
WEAR YOUR HAT STRAIGHT
Orioles’ reliever Pedro Strop brought back memories of Rays’ closer Fernando Rodney as he came out of the bullpen in the bottom of the sixth with his cap askew.
As they’ve done to Rodney twice already this season, the Blue Jays showed their displeasure with Strop’s sartorial choice by roughing him up on the mound.
On Wednesday evening, Jose Bautista took Rodney deep leading off the bottom of the ninth to tie the game and set up his own heroics in the next inning. It was Rodney’s second blown save against the Jays this season.
Strop couldn’t blow a save, having come in with the Orioles trailing by a run, but he allowed the Blue Jays to blow the game wide open by walking Bautista to load the bases and then serving up an Edwin Encarnacion grand slam off of the left-field foul screen.
Personally, I don’t understand why so many fans seem to have such an issue with pitchers wearing their hats off to one side, but apparently the Blue Jays don’t seem to like it very much, either.
THAT’S SOME SPEED
Anthony Gose is here to spell off the hobbling Melky Cabrera, play terrific defence and be a great pair of legs off the bench. But while he’s around he might as well do some things that bring the audience out of their seats, shaking their heads in excited disbelief.
He did just that in the eighth inning.
Gose was on second with nobody out and the Blue Jays were up by two, with Bautista at first and Encarnacion at the plate. O’s reliever T.J. McFarland threw a pitch that bounced off the glove of catcher Matt Wieters and rolled away about 10 feet or so. Both runners took off. Wieters knew that he had no chance to get Gose, so he took a shot at Bautista going to second.
As soon as Gose saw Wieters let go of the ball, he rounded third and sprinted for home, just sliding in safely under the return throw.
It was just your everyday score from second base on a passed ball, no big deal.
It was a move that came from confidence – some might say hubris – as opposed to being really well thoughtout. Had the Blue Jays been down a run or two, it would have been disastrous had he been thrown out (and he might have been, replays were inconclusive), but boy, was it a lot of fun to watch.