The Toronto Blue Jays wouldn’t get into specifics, but it needed to be said. Upton crushed it into the upper deck in left field at the Rogers Centre. However, since the All-Star Break, the Giants’ anemic offence (Twins’ second basemen Brian Dozier has hit more home runs since the All-Star Break than the Giants have as a team), among other considerations, has caused them to slip to four games back of the first place Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League West entering play on Saturday. Travis started the inning with a leadoff double to start the third.
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When the struggling Josh Donaldson stroked a ground ball to Boston shortstop Xander Bogaerts, Travis took off for third when he would have been better served to play it conservatively and stay put. “Just to make sure that we’re all in it together, just remembering that it’s about winning; it’s not about individuals, it’s about the team”.
Toronto tagged another run on in the third when Aaron Hill was charged with a fielding error at the hot corner and Jose Bautista later slapped an RBI single to short.
On Friday, the Red Sox took a rousing 13-3 win. Happ breezed through the first five innings without getting himself into too much trouble.
Saturday’s effort looked especially unsafe, given that Martin had little chance of landing on his feet and the entire Red Sox dugout had their heads pointed skyward, watching the path of the pop fly.
Pedroia has at least one hit in 27 consecutive games against Toronto, the longest streak by any Blue Jays opponent. Relievers Joaquin Benoit and Jason Grilli pitched two scoreless innings while Roberto Osuna earned the save, his 31st.
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. Three batters later, Ramirez connected off Feldman, his 22nd. The next seven would go in order before Chris Young broke up the no-no with one down in the fifth, but he was again left on base.
The Red Sox are 4-10 in their last 14 game threes of a series, and 1-4 in their last five Sunday games.
Fernandez (14-8) gave up three hits and three walks in seven shutout innings. The Blue Jays made two errors and had two wild pitches and two passed balls. After a walk to Murphy put runners on first and second, Harper hit a 78-mph 3-1 pitch from Shuster into the Washington bullpen down the right-field line. This time, it was Toronto’s lefty making a no-hit bid.
Hanley Ramirez singled to start the seventh and another hit from Aaron Hill knocked Happ out of the game.
Jose Peraza’s sacrifice fly got the Cincinnati Reds home for a 4-3 triumph over the Pittsburgh Pirates. Bradley came to plate looking to do some damage and he nearly did. The next one was even more worrying, as it kept carrying towards the wall and looked like it might continue over the fence, but Bautista caught it crashing into the wall. The southpaw is coming off one of the best starts of his career.
If you watch enough games featuring Russell Martin behind the plate, odds are you’re going to see him go hurdling into a dugout or two. However, they could not extend the lead any further despite two on with one out and Rodriguez on the ropes, as Martin and Troy Tulowitzki struck out back to back.
“It’s just important to get runs in general”, said Upton. In the eighth Ortiz hit a two out single, but Betts popped up to the second basemen to end the eighth.
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CHICAGO – Melky Cabrera and Tyler Saladino each drove in a pair of runs and Carlos Rodon allowed only one earned run and struck out a season-high nine batters as Chicago beat Kansas City at U.S. Cellular Field.
