A Royal sweep for Blue Jays
Hot start continues as Toronto takes both ends of doubleheader at home
TORONTO — Is it May already?
The weather may be horse bleep and the calendar may be just past the midway point of April, but the Toronto Blue Jays are playing at a torrid pace compared to their notoriously slow starts in the first month of the season.
Don’t look now, but with a doubleheader sweep over the Kansas City Royals on Tuesday at the Rogers Centre, the Jays are now 11-5 —a win total they didn’t hit until May 7 and Game 31 last year.
Backup catcher Luke Maile was the hero in the nightcap, belting out a bases-loaded walk off single in the bottom of the 10th as the Jays won a squeaker 5-4.
Earlier in a long day, the surging Jays slugged their way to an 11-3 win over the Royals and have now guaranteed another series win. The three-game set winds up Wednesday.
It was just the third doubleheader in the history of the Rogers Centre and the Jays have swept each of them.
As they add to the win column, the Jays are determined to wash away the bad taste of last year’s miserable start.
While the team has been steady or better in several areas, one of the big keys to the early success has been the ability to get offence from up and down the batting order.
“To have a good year, everybody has to contribute,” manager John Gibbons said. “The good teams we’ve had around here, that’s the thing that’s happened. But for the most part, we feel pretty good wherever we are in the lineup.”
That order added some more balance in Tuesday’s opener, thanks in large part to struggling right fielder Randal Grichuk, who checked in with a double and a big three-run homer, part of a blow it open six-run sixth for the Jays.
“It’s an understatement to say he needed that,” Gibbons said. “He
definitely needs that. Hopefully he breathes a little easier now.
“We got him for a reason. You see a lot of good things in him and his talent.”
To suggest things were getting to the desperation stage with Grichuk wouldn’t be an overstatement. Prior to Tuesday’s action, Grichuk’s .071 batting average was the lowest in the
majors among qualified batters and he had just one hit in his previous 37 plate appearances.
Grichuk had recently shown signs of snapping out of it and responded on Tuesday. After a loud warning track out, he followed with a good hustling double in the fifth followed by his homer in the next inning.
With both Grichuk and second
baseman Devon Travis getting in on the offence and Maile now hitting with confidence, the Jays feel they have run-scoring potential up and down their lineup.
“I feel like the one thing now is we’re more competitive, one through nine,” said Jays first baseman Justin Smoak.