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.
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Melvin Upton Jr. hit a looper to right field, and Max Kepler turned it into a little league home run that capped off a memorable Blue Jays comeback.
“We scored over 20 runs in three games and couldn’t find a way to win one”, manager Paul Molitor said.
The Toronto Blue Jays have rediscovered their offense while the Minnesota Twins are going the extra mile to find creative methods to continue their losing ways.
Toronto reliever Scott Feldman (7-4) pitched two-thirds of an inning to pick up the win.
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. He struck out five.
The Jays trailed 7-6 in the eighth when Kevin Pillar doubled with one out.
Bautista led off the first with a double as Twins’ outfielders Robbie Grossman and Danny Santana collided, allowing it to drop in. Santana left with a sprained left shoulder.
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 up for his ninth error of the season nearly immediately, smoking a Gibson offering into the second deck in left in the bottom half. Mauer returned to the Twins lineup after missing three games with sore quadriceps. Boston 71-57 (.555) 1.5 games behind 3.
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. Pressly relieved with the bases loaded and gave up a two-run single to Josh Donaldson.
In the third, Rosario came around to score on a fielder’s choice RBI by Max Kepler. The next batter, third baseman Trevor Plouffe, smacked a single to left to score Brian Dozier. Miguel Sano hit a two-run single.
Leading off the sixth, Tulowitzki hammered an 89 miles per hour two-seam fastball from Gibson just over the wall in deep centre to pull the Jays to within two. Troy Tulowitzki lined out, but the three-run inning cut Minnesota’s lead down and set up Upton’s heroics. Pillar scored easily, and Upton followed with what was eventually scored a triple and an error.
Chris Davis homered twice and Mark Trumbo hit his big league-leading 39th home run for Baltimore. It was his fourth multi-homer game of the season and the 10th of his career. Josh Donaldson holds 140 hits with 105 runs, 33 homers and 91 RBI.
Jason Grilli pitched around a walk in the top of the eighth.
Dozier scored in the first inning on a wild pitch by Stroman, generating the run basically on his own.
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Toronto Blue Jays starting pitcher R.A. Dickey throws against the Minnesota Twins during the first inning of a baseball game in Toronto, Sunday, Aug. 28, 2016. Santiago has not pitched since August 20 because of a sore left thumb.
