“They’ve got a great team and they’ll have Sanchez on the mound who’s one of the better pitchers in the game right now”. “Co-MVP to everybody”.
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After scoring just three runs in the first three games, the Toronto offence got out of first gear in a game that was a mirror image of the previous three.
Encarnacion took ball one, fouled off strike one and then shot a groundball up the middle to score two runs, the crowd exploding even as Donaldson was thrown out at third, drawing a throw away from home.
“I had to witness everything he had to go through to try and go out there and pitch last night”, pitching coach Mickey Callaway said before Tuesday’s game. But as he stands on the precipice of his biggest career achievement – pitching the Cleveland Indians into the World Series – perhaps no endorsement resonates more than the one he received in an exhausted, exultant visitors clubhouse at Rogers Centre late Monday night.
Two of the three Cleveland hits that Stroman allowed went over the fence for solo homers.
Bauer faced only four batters before being pulled after his right pinkie began dripping blood.
“If we knew we’d be doing it”, he said. OF Michael Saunders, who is from British Columbia, became the second Canadian to hit a postseason home run for the Blue Jays on Monday when he went deep in the second inning. “It’s hard to do in a short amount of time”.
It’s yet another injury problem for a Cleveland team that couldn’t include ailing starting pitchers Carlos Carrasco and Danny Salazar on its ALCS roster.
“Listen, we got the offence going now and we can ride that train all the way to the Series”.
The Blue Jays’ victory meant that teams down 3-0 are now 7-29 all-time. Ezequiel Carrera had two hits for the Blue Jays, who haven’t led at any point in the series. “We know these guys”. They actually have just as many hits as Cleveland, but Cleveland has out-homered them 4-1. We can’t get happy.
The former Red Sox pitcher played through an ankle tendon injury in Game 6 of the 2004 American League Championship Series. “This is the best way to do it”, Francona said. Let’s touch on some of the most notable: this was their first loss of the postseason; their first loss of October; their first time trailing since the first inning of Game 1 of the ALDS; the first time they had allowed multiple runs in a single inning all postseason; and so on.
Toronto struck out 25 times over the first two games and punched out nine times in Game 3.
Although Cody Allen has been the closer all season, Indians manager Terry Francona called on him in the seventh, and he responded by striking out two batters and surrendering only one walk over his 1.2 innings of work.
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Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.
