Former A’s third baseman Josh Donaldson hit a tiebreaking two-run double with two outs in the ninth and the Toronto Blue Jays held on to beat Oakland 5-3 on Sunday to avoid a series sweep.
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Donaldson, traded from Oakland to Toronto prior to the 2015 season, also singled and scored in the first inning to help the Blue Jays win after A’s starter Rich Hill left the game with a blister on his finger in the first inning. He gave up two runs on three hits over five innings, striking out four and walking none.Toronto extended its lead to 3-0 in the fourth when Martin lined a leadoff double to right-center and Tulowitzki launched a two-run shot to center field with one out. The A’s have homered six times in two games, three of them by Davis.
Sunday was a bad day for pitchers at the Coliseum.
“After losing two pitchers in the first inning, with a limited bullpen to start, I thought we played pretty well and responded pretty well”, Melvin said.
His replacement, Andrew Triggs, was hit in the leg by a line drive from Donaldson moments after Hill was taken out. And that was followed by a hard Edwin Encarnacion liner to left-centre field that, after one bounce, eluded the glove of Davis, rolling all the way to the wall and scoring a hustling Donaldson from first.
After a break of a few minutes in which the Athletics trainers came out to the mound to make sure Triggs was alright to continue pitching, the decision was made to leave him in. It was the second homer and eighth hit for Semien off Happ in 16 career at-bats.
What started as a strong outing for Happ dissolved in the sixth inning. That brought Jesse Chavez out of the bullpen to face DH Billy Butler.
Smoak and Junior Lake hit consecutive one-out singles off John Axford (3-3) in the ninth. Unfortunately, Junior Lake and Devon Travis struck out, and then another old friend Liam Hendriks got Donaldson to pop out. Donaldson popped out in foul ground behind third base to end the threat.
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“It was in the back of my mind”, he said. He did throw off the mound Friday and said he was perfectly ready to go following that session. “(The A’s) never quit. “We’ve got to let that skin come back and heal”. Yesterday, we scored early and they battled back.
Coming into the 6th with just over 70 pitches thrown, and not giving up a hit till the first batter of the fourth inning, Happ seemed to be having a day where he might be able to go deep and lead his team to victory. “The fact of the matter is we were able to get a (win) today and get some momentum going into Arizona”.
A 2007 draft choice, Donaldson spent parts of six seasons in the minor leagues before establishing himself as a big-leaguer. But Semien was ruled out after video review.NOTES: Blue Jays 1B Justin Smoak agreed to a two-year contract extension with a club option for 2019.
It was a good start for the former Oregon Duck, but of course no one knows how long his stay with Oakand will be. “He came through big, as always”. This weekend, with so many Toronto fans in the stands, he continued to hear the MVP chants.
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Before arriving in the Bay Area, the journeyman previously spent time with the Chicago Cubs, Baltimore Orioles, Boston Red Sox, Cleveland Indians, Los Angeles Angels and New York Yankees. You can’t lose your focus or get out of your normal approach.
