“It means that we’re playing good baseball”, Martin said. We’re not going to be backing into it. (Toronto is) good, Boston’s good and New York’s a week away from being right there, too. What I like about this team is the consistency of our starting pitching. “Hopefully it gets us going a little bit and we kind of lighten up and loosen up a little bit, start swinging the bats better”. “We are feeling pretty good about it”.
Advertisement
The Peru, Illinois native continued his excellent season on Saturday against the Baltimore Orioles, with a seven inning, three hit, 11 strikeout masterclass.
Nationals ace Stephen Strasburg tries to become the first pitcher in the majors with 15 wins this season when he starts at Arizona. After J.J. Hardy walked, Jesse Chavez came on in relief and gave up a no-doubter to Jones, his 20th of the season.
RAYS 5, YANKEES 3: Rookie left-hander Blake Snell struck out nine over 51/3 innings, Luke Maile had a key two-run single and Tampa Bay completed a three-game sweep in St. Petersburg, Florida. They’ll need to get their offense clicking again, and get respectable outings from starting pitchers more frequently, if they hope to remain perched in first place in the division.
TWINS 6, WHITE SOX 4 (at Minneapolis) – Brian Dozier homered twice and Ervin Santana posted another strong start.
“He’s a veteran guy, that’s always big”, Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said. “Not just today-he’s been doing it all year”.
CHICAGO – Leonys Martin hit a go-ahead, two-run double against closer Aroldis Chapman in the eighth inning to lift Seattle over Chicago. The Baltimore run became moot when the Toronto offence went into overdrive three innings later. It wasn’t until August 23 that they moved into first for good previous year, so if they can wrest back the division lead on the road this week they face a much longer stretch to fend off rival advances. We’ll put it behind us and go out there 1/8Sunday 3/8. “If I was able to go, I definitely would have been in there”. It was one of those days where he had good life on his fastball and everything else played off that. By the same token, they could just as quickly slip out of contention with a tough series or two. Sanchez was the latest Jays starter to hurl a quality start against the Orioles, after righty Marco Estrada and lefty J.A. Happ did so during the first two games of the series.
Lucas Harrell gave up four hits in six innings of his Rangers debut after being was acquired from Atlanta last Wednesday to bolster Texas’ injury-riddled starting rotation. Five O’s relievers kept the Jays off the board the rest of the way, working 6.1 scoreless innings and allowing only one hit.
Devon Travis connected for a solo home run with one out, Edwin Encarnacion brought home Jose Bautista with a double, Josh Donaldson scored on a bases-loaded walk to Troy Tulowitzki, and Martin and Kevin Pillar stroked two-run doubles.
In the seventh, Pillar hit another two-run double, a hit that enabled him to tie his career high with four RBIs. In the end it could well come down to Happ, Cole Hamels, Chris Sale, Danny Salazar and even Aaron Sanchez for the Cy Young award in the AL.
“We know we’re going to have to score more than one but Happ didn’t make that possible”, Showalter said.
Advertisement
The Jays are 102-63 since acquiring Tulowitzki from Colorado last season and Travis said his respect for his middle-infield mate grows with every game.
