Jays smash way to sweep of Orioles
The Blue Jays didn’t need a manager to call the shots Sunday at the Rogers Centre, they needed a bombardier.
Kendrys Morales, Curtis Granderson, Teoscar Hernandez and Kevin Pillar smashed home runs to lead Toronto to a 13-3 victory over the Baltimore Orioles, their first four-game sweep of the season. It was a season high in homers.
The Jays also posted 19 hits, their most in a game since May 29, 2017, against Cincinnati.
The 37-year-old Granderson had a huge day, hitting a homer to go along with two doubles, a single and a walk for six RBIs — a career high. Granderson said he had no idea during the game he had posted six RBIs or that it was even a career high.
“It’s cool,” he said. “I’ve been playing for so long and you realize this should have happened by now. It shows how difficult this game is.”
It was only the second series sweep for the Jays this year, the first being a three-gamer in Kansas City in April. The last four-game sweep was July 24-27, 2017, at the Rogers Centre against the Oakland A’s. The bottom-feeding Orioles have lost 11 of their last 13.
“A couple of days ago I was sitting next to (bench coach) DeMarlo (Hale) during the game and I said, ‘You know what we need? We need one of the guys to just have a big game, a monster-type game,’ ” said Jays manager John Gibbons.
“You see that every now and then, it kind of carries you a little bit. That’s what (Granderson) did today. Set the tone.”
Morales and Granderson hit their bombs off Baltimore starter Alex Cobb, who gave up 11 hits and nine runs in 32/3 innings. Hernandez and Pillar went deep at the expense of O’s reliever Pedro Araujo.
Jays starter Marco Estrada was impressive in picking up his third win. His performance gave the Jays their seventh straight quality start. Estrada is 5-0 in seven starts against Baltimore at the Rogers Centre. He gave up four hits in six innings, walked one and struck out nine, giving up home runs to Trey Mancini and Jonathan Schoop.