O’s hurler with gaudy ERA has no trouble with Blue Jays’ bats

Ubaldo Jimenez pitched TORONTO eight shutout innings as the Baltimore Orioles downed the Toronto Blue Jays 2-0 on Thursday in a battle of the American League East’s two bottom-feeders.

Caleb Joseph drove in a run for Baltimore (39-39) and Jonathan Schoop hit a sacrifice fly. Brad Brach earned the save, his 15th of the season.

Jimenez (3-3), who came into the game with a 7.26 earned-run average, allowed just two hits and a walk while striking out eight batters to improve to 8-5 in his career against the Blue Jays.

Toronto’s (37-41) lone hits off Jimenez came on a pair of two-out doubles — one from Ryan Goins in the third inning and another from Kevin Pillar in the eighth. Russell Martin hit a single off Brach in the ninth.

J.A. Happ (2-5) allowed two runs on eight hits over 6⅓ innings, walking two and striking out two while surpassing his loss total from all of last season.

Jimenez was just as good Thursday as he was in his last start against Toronto on Sept. 29, 2016, when he pitched 6⅔ scoreless innings while surrendering just one hit at Rogers Centre.

The Orioles gave him all the run support he needed early.

They got on the board in the third inning as Schoop drove in Ruben Tejada from third base with a sac fly to left-centre field. Tejada had led off the inning with a single and advanced to third on a Joey Rickard double.

Baltimore tacked on another run in the sixth to extend its lead to 2-0.

A defensive gem from Pillar kept the leadoff man from reaching in the seventh. The Toronto centrefielder sprinted toward the fence to track down a Tejada fly ball and caught it as he crashed into the wall.