Travis steals home, Blue Jays beat Mariners
Devon Travis couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Blue Jays third base coach Luis Rivera was telling him to go for a double steal, with Travis targeting home plate and catcher Luke Maile sprinting to second, to try and add to Toronto’s lead against the Seattle Mariners.
“I looked at first and it was Luke. And no offence to Luke, he can run pretty good for a catcher, but I turned around and said ‘right now?’” said Travis with a laugh. “Luis said ‘yeah, right now.’ So I did it. I saw the arm go and I took off.”
Travis didn’t move off third until Mariners catcher Carlos Ruiz threw to second to try to catch Maile. Second baseman Taylor Motter fired the ball back home but Travis slid under Ruiz’s tag to score the final run in the Blue Jays’ 7-2 victory over Seattle on Saturday for Toronto’s fourth straight win.
The rare play added some insurance for the Blue Jays an inning after Jose Bautista’s three-run homer broke the game open. Kendrys Morales hit a solo shot in his first game back after missing three games with a strained left hamstring. He wasn’t in the Blue Jays (16-21) lineup until after batting practice because manager John Gibbons and the team’s medical staff wanted to test out his legs before putting him back into action.
“I’m just getting the good pitches and I’m not missing them,” said Bautista, who has three homers in his past four games. “I’m just taking it one day at a time and hopefully I’ll continue to contribute. We’re all showing up here every day to work hard and get wins and we’ve been doing that lately.”
Home runs were the Blue Jays’ bread and butter on their way to the American League Championship Series the past two years but with big guns Josh Donaldson and Troy Tulowitzki on the disabled list, Toronto found other ways to generate offence.
“I’ve definitely (stolen home) before, but it’s not a play you see a ton,” said Travis. “With that, and the fact that it was our guy Luke over there, it definitely surprised me. But we got it done. That was awesome.”
Marcus Stroman (3-2) gave up two earned runs but struck out nine over six innings. Jason Grilli, Aaron Loup, Dominic Leone, Joe Smith, Leonel Campos and Roberto Osuna gave up no runs in relief. Leone earned the win as the pitcher of record when Bautista homered.