“A little bit”, acknowledged Ortiz.
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“Two whole rows of Bostonians were looking at me, pointing at me, and all of them have this giant smile, and Rory holds the ball out to me, and I thought they were joking”, Rob Kerr said. It was in the bottom of the strike zone, right where the pitcher wanted to make that pitch.
Instead of a Grand Slam, it was just a lowly three-run shot, one that put the Red Sox ahead 10-8 in a game the Blue Jays desperately needed to win in order to climb back into a first-place tie with their American League rivals.
He then walked Russell Martin on four pitches to cut the lead to 4-2, and served up a bad pitch to Tulowitzki for his 23rd home run (and third career grand slam) to give the Jays a 6-4 lead.
“Outstanding pitching performances by all those guys”, Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said. “It was great to see us come back after we fell behind. It needs to be the start of something, that’s for sure”.
Tillman (16-5) allowed a run and four hits after being activated before the game. However, the 32-year-old right-hander struggled, allowing six earned runs on four hits while walking four and striking out three in just three innings.
This wasn’t the way the Blue Jays wanted to control Aaron Sanchez’s innings. Kimbrel struck out Martin with a nasty off-speed pitch, and got Tulowitzki to fly out to deep right field to pick up his 25th save and end the wild encounter. Today was ugly. I’m not going to let (the blister) be an excuse for how I did today. “That’s one thing that I’m going to miss the most”. It’s been something that I’ve dealt with since I left spring training.
“We’ll see”, Tulowitzki said.
“I guess”, said Ortiz with modesty, “I put a good swing on it”.
The regret that I felt while watching the game wasn’t because of the fans; it was because the game was still tied after a number of extra innings. With their wins, the Orioles (77-64) and Yankees (76-65) are just two and three games back, respectively.
McHugh (10-10) won his third straight decision, allowing one run and two hits.
Russell Martin followed with a drive down the right-field line that was ruled foul after a review, which led to the ejection of Gibbons.
“We just couldn’t find a way to get a couple more runs”, Pedroia said. “He keeps rolling along and we play with a lot of confidence”.
“Teams that I’ve been a part of in the past where they’ve done it, I haven’t really tracked how they worked. We’re somewhat in awe of what David is doing in his final run”. Sanchez, 13-2 with a 3.17 ERA in 27 starts, would be on turn to make the start on Tuesday, September 27 against Baltimore and then the regular season’s final game, potentially against David Price, at Boston on Sunday, October 2. Rendon then doubled to the wall in left-center off reliever Edubray Ramos and later scored on a passed ball by catcher A.J. Ellis. (0.2 innings, earned the victory), Brad Ziegler (1.2 innings), Fernando Abad (faced one batter), Matt Barnes (0.1 innings), and Koji Uehara (1.0 inning) kept the potent Jays offense off the board during innings five through eight. It scored Brock Holt and Sandy Leon, who had walked. He hit a grand slam and Edwin Encarnacion added two home runs on Sunday as Toronto dropped the rubber match of their three-game series to Boston 11-8.
Ortiz’s home run on August 28 was his 31st of the year, but he has not hit another one since.
Masahiro Tanaka struck out 10 in 7 1/3 innings while Gary Sanchez homered and as NY ran its winning streak to a season-high seven games with the victory over Tampa Bay.
Ramirez hit his 23rd homer of the season in the fifth against Joe Biagini.
Xander Bogaerts tied it 6-6 for Boston with a single in the fourth, scoring Bradley and Dustin Pedroia.
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The Red Sox overcame deficits of 6-4 and 8-6.
