The Red Sox lead 3-2 heading into the top of the seventh. “I needed a breather from everything”.
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“I couldn’t be more proud with the energy and effort”, manager John Farrell said. Kimbrel (0-2) shouldered the loss and Gavin Floyd (2-3) picked up the win. Swihart walked and then was able to get all the way to 3rd base by way of a wild pitch. Right-hander Drew Storen took over and allowed Pedroia’s ground-rule double to right center field.Betts scored on a groundout to shortstop by Xander Bogaerts, who earlier in the game extended his hit career-high streak to 22 games.Koji Uehara pitched the bottom of the 11th to earn his first save of the season.
The game was one of three featured games to honour the 40 year history of the Blue Jays. He also said that is true of the rest of the bullpen.
“He’s been pitching a lot”. He has a lot of innings over his career, he’s had some arm issues. The game went into extra innings and Clay Buchholz came into the game as the long reliever.
The Blue Jays led 2-0 on Jose Bautista’s 11th homer of the season in the fifth that followed a single by Ezequiel Carrera.
Looking to avoid a three-game sweep in Toronto, the Red Sox will send out former Blue Jay David Price to square off against knuckleballer R.A. Dickey in Sunday afternoon’s series finale.
Blue Jays DH Edwin Encarnacion tied the game 3-3 in the bottom of the eighth when he belted an 1-0 pitch from Hembree into the second deck in left field to start the inning.
Making his first start in Toronto since helping the Blue Jays reach the American League Championship Series last October, David Price gave up two runs and five hits in 6 1/3 innings, leaving to a loud ovation from the crowd of 47,916. Home plate umpire Mike DiMuro left the game in the second inning after he was struck in the face mask by a foul ball.
“That’s a good piece of hitting”, Kimbrel said. “A standing ovation is always good”.
Gordon Beckham clobbered a three-run homer as the Atlanta Braves hit back to eventually cruise past the Miami Marlins 7-2, a five-run second inning helped the Arizona Diamondbacks squeeze past the San Diego Padres 8-7, while the Minnesota Twins edged out the Seattle Mariners 6-5.
Buchholz allowed one hit in an otherwise clean inning, his first relief appearance since August 17, 2008 – also against the Blue Jays.
“I wish I wouldn’t have kept that curveball [to Smoak] in the zone”, Kimbrel said. “I wouldn’t consider it a great outing but I wouldn’t consider it a bad outing either”.
“I’ve been putting in a lot of work and I’ve been feeling I’ve been getting right where I have that feeling where I’m about to start producing”, he said. “I left it up and he drove it and I think there are times when you throw bad pitches and guys pop them up, and there are times when you throw good pitches and guys hit line drives”. The Red Sox first hit was a one-out triple by Betts in the sixth.
Left-hander Chad Girodo replaced Dickey and walked Jackie Bradley Jr. on a 3-2 pitch.
From there, Dickey went off the rails, walking Travis Shaw to load the bases and plunking Hanley Ramirez to force in the tying run before being yanked by Blue Jays manager John Gibbons.
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Carrera, playing left-field for Michael Saunders, hit a grounder to first to start the inning. Thole redeemed himself in his second bunt opportunity to move Carrera to second, but the Jays were unable to bring him in from scoring position with one out.
