Cashner quiets the Blue Jays bats

A solid start from Texas righthander Andrew Cashner brought an end to the suddenly surging Toronto Blue Jays’ season-high five-game winning streak.

Cashner (2-4) allowed one run and just five hits over seven innings to help the Rangers (2526) avoid a sweep with a 3-1 win in front of 46,188 fans at the Rogers Centre on Sunday.

That spoiled the best outing of the season from reliever-turnedstarter Joe Biagini (1-3), who threw a career-high 95 pitches and gave up two runs over six innings for the Blue Jays (23-27), who finally have most of their lineup healthy as they wrap the first leg of a 10-game, 10-day homestand.

“I thought he was solid,” Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said of Biagini. “We just couldn’t get anything going against Cashner.”

With recently returned infielders Troy Tulowitzki and Josh Donaldson back in the Blue Jays lineup after a day off, Toronto struck first when Kevin Pillar led off the bottom of the first inning with a double and scored on a Jose Bautista sacrifice fly.

From there, Cashner settled in. The six-foot-six right-hander struck out only two but worked nimbly out of trouble when the Blue Jays managed to threaten, including a fourth inning in which he gave up opening walks to Bautista and Kendrys Morales before grounding Russell Martin into a double play and leaving the inning with only 13 pitches.

“He’s been one of the most sought-after arms the last few years in baseball, and one of the best arms in baseball,” Gibbons said later.

“He used to just be power, power, power. (Now) he can throw anything at any time. He’s kind of a master at that.”

The Rangers’ lineup, meanwhile, was slightly more opportunistic than Toronto’s. They tied the game in the third after Elvis Andrus eked out an infield single, advanced to second with his 10th stolen base of the season, and scored on a single to centre from catcher Jonathan Lucroy.

An inning later, Joey Gallo clubbed his 15th home run of the season over the wall in leftcentre to give the Rangers a 2-1 lead. After reliever Dominic Leone took the ball for the Blue Jays in the seventh, Texas made it 3-1 when Andrus singled, advanced to third on a Nomar Mazara opposite-way double, and then scored on a wild pitch.