Tulowitzki came into Sunday’s game 0-for-10 in the series and was dropped to the No. 6 spot in the batting order for the first time this season. The franchise post-season record is five by Tony Fernandez in 1993. Estrada picked up the win and Aaron Loupe, Mark Lowe, and Roberto Osuna closed out the victory for Toronto.
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The beeping sound you hear is the Blue Jays season on life support as they limp into Arlington to try and begin their three-game win streak.
However, Navarro grounded into a double play and Perez once against escaped.
“I expect he’ll be fine”, manager John Gibbons told reporters.
The reality of tonight’s game is why we can’t use the term “must-win game” in mid-summer.
In the seventh, Estrada retired the first batter, then surrendered two consecutive singles, each one on the ground and just beyond the reach of an infielder.
Aside from a few individual performances, the bullpen as a whole was excellent, holding the Rangers in check for just over two innings.
In Game 1, the Rangers started quickly by going up 2-0 after scores from Rougned Odor and Delino DeShields in the top of the third inning. They had arrived in Texas facing elimination having lost their two home games to open the series, but their much touted offense finally arrived in the series and it couldn’t have come a minute sooner. A double play didn’t score any runs but put runners on second and third for Tulowitzki who worked a full count before driving the ball over the left-field fence for a 5-0 Toronto lead.
Donaldson led off with a double and moved up on a fly ball. After an intentional walk to Edwin Encarnacion, Perez issued back-to back walks to Chris Colabello and Tulowitzki to bring in a run. Perez doesn’t blow anyone away, but he gets a ton of ground balls and gives up a minuscule amount of home runs which is a pretty good strategy for success. “But it got enough plate and enough of his bat”. After walking Encarnacion, Gonzalez found himself in a bases loaded situation with no outs.
This was the Blue Jays’ first postseason win since they won the second of their back-to-back World Series championships in 1993. Dickey is 8-1 since the All-Star Break with a 2.80 ERA but has not started in the playoffs before. Albert Pujols hit three home runs in Game 3 and Holland’s gem helped even things up when the Rangers really needed it. Dioner Navarro is also expected to catch Estrada, the impacts of which we explored here yesterday.
Now the 21-year-old second baseman is a big reason Texas returned home with a 2-0 lead in the best-of-five AL Division Series against Toronto. “You lose in a playoff series to that serious of an injury, yeah, they’re not very happy about it”.
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“Hopefully we bounce back tomorrow and have another good game”, said Gibbons. In 13 at-bats, Donaldson has five hits, three walks and a home run. He hasn’t exactly fared well against the Jays in his career, either, allowing a career.
