Josh Donaldson isn’t in the Blue Jays lineup for Wednesday’s matinee against the Tampa Bay Rays (12:30 p.m., Sportsnet), the third straight game he’s sat out.
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Nearly a month later, Ramirez connected again, this time helping give Smyly a win. It was Tampa Bay’s 200th home run as a team this season, setting a new franchise record for a single campaign. Kiermaier’s homer was followed shortly by another run for Tampa as the Rays took advantage of a walk to Brad Miller and some good base running.
Ramirez wasn’t sure what his future held when San Diego cut him loose, but he’s happy for the chance he’s been given.
“I think Josh, probably, felt that he would recover sooner than it has – and it hasn’t”, Atkins said. “Here I am with an opportunity”. Toronto and Baltimore are two games behind Boston in the East. The Blue Jays attempt to halt their September swoon and win the rubber match of their three-game set versus the visiting Rays on Wednesday when the division rivals finish out their season series.Toronto took Monday’s opener 3-2 in a game highlighted by a brief benches-clearing skirmish that did not feature any punches being thrown, but Tampa Bay retaliated with a 6-2 win Tuesday for its seventh victory in its last 11 tries during the season series.
“Obviously, one pitch to Ramirez, we’d like to get that one back, but that’s really the story of the day, that one pitch”, Martin said.
Donaldson, who’s played in 138 of the team’s 144 games this season, missed three consecutive games at Rogers Centre this week with the nagging injury. Dickerson produced two of the runs on his 20th homer run of the season.
“It’s tough but we still control our own destiny”, Donaldson said. You could throw that pitch 9-out-of-10 times and maybe get more sink on it, get a ground ball and we’re out of the inning.
“Hopefully I’ll be able to get back out there tomorrow”, Donaldson said after the game.
The game started out on an encouraging note for the Blue Jays as Marco Estrada struck out five batters in a row, setting a Blue Jays record for the most to open a game.
Donaldson wasn’t in the lineup on Wednesday for the third straight day. With one on and two away, Martin was clearly sitting on a curveball when Smyly tried to drop one in middle-inside. He was optioned after yielding four homers in his previous six appearances spanning eight innings.
“We’re not playing good enough baseball right now on either end”, Gibbons said. “It’s kind of been a snowball effect, we just have to stop it”.
The Toronto Blue Jays passed the three million mark for fan attendance at the Rogers Centre on Tuesday.
If, somewhere in the near future, there will be cause to conduct an autopsy on the 2016 Blue Jays, Wednesday would be a good place to start cutting. The one run they did score was produced by a double by Devon Travis, a sacrifice bunt by Saunders to advance the runner and a sacrifice fly by Edwin Encarnacion to drive the run home.
Remember various Maple Leafs 18-wheelers skidding off of the road and the infamous 1987 Blue Jays collapse?
“Our team morale is still high, guys are picking everybody else up every inning”, Estrada said following the loss that knocked Toronto down to third place in the American League East. His last win was August 29 against the Baltimore Orioles. He’s hitting.284/.400/.552 with 34 home runs and 92 runs batted in.
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Stroman (9-8) allowed three runs and four hits in six innings, falling to 0-3 this month. It will be his third start since returning from Tommy John surgery. He’s 1-1 with a 5.56 ERA in two career starts at Toronto.
