Josh Donaldson bashed a home run for the third straight game, and Jose Bautista crushed a grand slam into the second deck at Rogers Centre, ruining Duffey’s big-league debut and taking a lead the Twins could never completely close in a 9-7 loss to the Blue Jays. “He’s got a great first step”. When they hit the ball, it sounds like auto crashes. Encarnacion doubled to left, Donaldson scored.
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The story for the game was similar to that of the series: Twins pitchers getting throttled by the powerful Blue Jays lineup while the Minnesota lineup struggled to get anything going offensively.
“We are very confident, no doubt about that”, manager John Gibbons said. “There aren’t too many teams going to beat that team over there”, Twins right fielder Torii Hunter said. We’ve got to pitch well, give our offence a chance and play good defence, really.
But as the Blue Jays will still have 10 games left against the Yankees after they finish up in Yankee Stadium on Sunday, Buehrle cautioned there is still plenty of baseball to be played.
He’s hit two home runs since coming to Toronto and is feeling more comfortable, thanks in part to Donaldson’s influence. He is 30-19 with a 3.68 ERA in 54 appearances against Minnesota.
The deadliest offence in the majors pummelled the Twins yet again, led by Edwin Encarnacion (three hits and four RBIs, including a deep home run), Ben Revere (3-for-4 with three runs scored) and Troy Tulowitzki (two hits).
The slumping Twins have lost four in a row and are 5-13 since the All-Star break. “We’ll just say, ‘Hey, let’s get it over with it and get it behind us. It’s easy for me to brush those off”.
Still, Hunter figures the Twins won’t be the only team Toronto punishes before the season is out. And they proved it against one of the Twins’ best minor-league pitchers on Wednesday. Dickey has won his last three starts, but two of those came against light-hitting Oakland and Philadelphia. He has batted first 85 times and fourth eight times.
“You bend a little bit and try not to break”, said Hawkins. He’s making $22 million a year for 2 more seasons and he isn’t the player he used to be.
In New York, Steven Wright handcuffed a torrid New York ineup with his steady supply of knuckleballs, and David Ortiz hit a colossal home run for Boston.
Hicks hit an RBI double to left field to make it 9-5. Davis homered for the first time since July 18, connecting off Padres starter Odrisamer Despaigne (5-8) in the third – a shot into the San Diego bullpen that made it 4-0.
The Blue Jays are looking to end a major league-worst 22-year playoff-drought. The Blue Jays perform similarly when they allow one or more homers with a 32-37 record. The Angels would go on to score three runs in the ninth with two outs to earn a 4-3 victory.
Molitor said, “You just have to take a step back”. “Today it just didn’t work out for him”.
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And the Blue Jays, with a solid start to the second half of the season bolstered by some bold trade deadline manoeuvrings by general manager Alex Anthopoulos, seem to be peaking at the right moment.
