Upton continued all the way home for what proved to be the winning run and the Toronto Blue Jays came back to defeat the Minnesota Twins 8-7 on Saturday.
Advertisement
With one out in the eighth inning and Kevin Pillar on second base, Upton flared a ball into shallow right field. Upton followed with a triple past a diving Max Kepler in right.
Kepler dove towards the ball which ended up bouncing over his glove and towards the warning track; when Kepler went to retrieve the baseball, he kicked it away allowing Upton to trot all the way home giving the Blue Jays the lead for good. Jason Grilli worked the eighth and Roberto Osuna finished. Minnesota 2B Brian Dozier is 9-for-27 with two homers, four RBIs and six runs scored in his last six contests and 4-for-12 with two blasts in his career versus Dickey.3.
The Twins have allowed eight or more runs in a franchise-high six straight games.
Donaldson had hit two home runs in a game nine times in his Major League career, but Sunday’s power surge was the third baseman’s first three-homer game.
After the switch-hitting catcher connected, the crowd of 38,843 emphatically chanted his name. Mark Teixeira stepped out of the batter’s box, pausing the game and allowing the 23-year-old to tip his batting helmet to the fans from the top of the dugout steps.
Starlin Castro and Aaron Hicks also homered as the Yankees won their fourth in a row. “I don’t even know that I really heard them”. The Twins have lost seven straight in Toronto. Dylan Bundy (7-5) was the loser.
The Jays finally got to Minnesota starter Ervin Santana in the fourth when Edwin Encarnacion walked with one out and was hit home via a Michael Saunders two-out double to the corner in right field.
Donaldson made a throwing error in the top of the third that contributed to the Twins’ first run, but he made up for that with a line-drive home run in the bottom half of the inning, smacking a 92 miles per hour, four-seam fastball by Gibson over the left field fence into the second deck for a 2-1 Toronto lead.
Stroman’s season ERA climbed to 4.58 Saturday with five earned runs allowed, but he pitched better than his line would suggest since numerous nine hits he allowed were just out of the reach of Blue Jays infielders. In his last outing against the Angels, Estrada put up five innings with 10 hits and six runs for a loss.
“If he hits it in the gap, it could turn into three”.
With the loss, the Twins have matched their season long losing streak of 9 games and are 48-80 on the season.
NL MVP Bryce Harper was ejected in the 10th after getting called out on strikes. The Nationals star yelled at plate umpire Mike Winters and threw his helmet to the ground after being tossed.
DIAMONDBACKS 11, REDS 2: Yasmany Tomas homered, Welington Castillo drove in four runs and Archie Bradley earned his first win in more than a month and Arizona romped at home over Cincinnati.
Donaldson also becomes the 18th player this season to record a three-homer game.
Advertisement
Bautista picked his third hit of the day, a single, to lead off the seventh and Donaldson followed with his second home run on a 95 miles per hour four-seam fastball.
