ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – The Tampa Bay Rays are built around three high-ceiling hitters in Junior Caminero, Jonathan Aranda and Yandy Diaz, secondary pieces they can mix and match for the need of the moment, and their usual high standard of pitching and defence. On both sides of the ball, their opponents are under constant pressure, a model that’s produced the American League’s best record to this point and one that feels very familiar to the Toronto Blue Jays.
“When we started going real good last year, we were doing that,” said manager John Schneider. “We were advancing on base hits, we were forcing the issue, you put the ball in play you're going to try to make some teams make some mistakes, and they do a really good job. … Tampa, everyone goes to them being pesky, but it’s like you’ve got a dude with 35 homers in the middle of the order, too. You’ve got to defend both.”
The Blue Jays couldn’t do that during their first three series with the AL East leaders this season, losing eight of 10 games. But they out-Rays’d the Rays in the opener of a three-game set Tuesday night, riding big nights from Alejandro Kirk and George Springer and contributions from the entire lineup in a 10-5 thumping.
Jose Soriano mostly kept the Rays under wraps through 5.2 innings, allowing three runs on nine hits, and was helped out by a pair of 3-6-1 double plays, one off the bat of Aranda with the bases loaded in the third and another off the bat of Liam Hicks with two on in the fifth, which started with a strong pick and throw by Kazuma Okamoto at first.
That allowed the offence to keep the heat on Rays starter Nick Martinez, who allowed six runs and didn’t make it out of the fourth, and a bullpen worn down from a weekend series versus the Baltimore Orioles.
Pivotally, the Blue Jays paired some slug with the grind-out offence they rode to a 5-2 homestand versus the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees, as they hit three homers in a game for only the ninth time this season, getting a two-run shot from Kirk in the third, an Okamoto solo shot to open the fifth and Josh Smith’s two-run shot in the seventh.
Springer’s RBI single in the first cashed in a Kirk double to open the scoring, and he came around when Jesus Sanchez banged a double off the left-field wall, while they went up 6-0 in the fourth when Brett Bateman, continuing to play the catalyst atop the lineup, scored on a wild pitch and Kirk added another RBI single.
Bateman’s RBI single in the fifth came after Okamoto’s 25th homer while Smith’s drive pushed the game further out of reach, as the Blue Jays (62-65) won for the 14th time in 21 games, this time doing it without leverage. They hadn’t put up double-digit runs since a 10-0 win at San Francisco on July 8, and now they’re on the ascent in the wild-card standings rather than trying to pause a slide.
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