ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – An inherent part of the experience inside baseball’s last dive bar is that even routine fly balls can turn into an adventure and Jesus Sanchez sure went on a wild ride out in left at Tropicana Field on Wednesday night.
A Junior Caminero drive to the left-field corner twisted up the outfielder in the first, as he ran to his left before lunging to his right, missing the ball, which bounced over the wall for a ground-rule double. The bizarreness of his route prompted the Tampa Bay Rays to ask for a crew-chief review, assuming the ball had hit the C-Ring catwalk above, which would have made the hit a home run, but the call stood. No matter, as Yandy Diaz, batting with two outs in the frame because the ball wasn’t caught, crushed a Max Scherzer slider over the wall in left-centre to open the scoring.
Then in the fourth, after an Alejandro Kirk solo shot in the top of the inning halved the Rays lead, Richie Palacios looped a ball into short left with the bases loaded and one out. Sanchez charged in, seemed to lose it and was looking at shortstop Andres Gimenez when it dropped in to his right, allowing two runs to score.
Scherzer, who had walked a pair around a single to create the jam, couldn’t stop the damage there as Taylor Walls and Chandler Simpson each dropped a run-scoring bunt before Caminero’s RBI groundout capped a preventable five-run outburst.
All of which made the subsequent Toronto Blue Jays rally against Drew Rasmussen and eventual 7-6 loss so frustrating. Five runs off the all-star righty plus another off the bullpen should be enough to win more often than not, but on a night when the defence faltered and made an already tall task even tougher.
The Blue Jays scored four times in the fifth after falling behind 7-1, getting an RBI single from Charles McAdoo, Nathan Lukes' sacrifice fly and two more run-scoring singles by Kirk and Kazuma Okamoto and again in the sixth on McAdoo’s RBI double.
Some hard-hit balls later in the game didn’t fall, including one by pinch-hitter George Springer and another by Kirk off Bryan Baker in the ninth, as the Blue Jays dropped a winnable contest.
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