Encarnacion homers twice as Jays outslug Orioles
TORONTO 11 BALTIMORE 6
TORONTO — Blue Jays slugger Edwin Encarnacion couldn’t buy a hit last week when he was stuck in a nasty slump.
Now, it seems he can’t miss when he steps up to the plate.
Encarnacion hit two homers and drove in five runs to power Toronto to an 11-6 victory over the Baltimore Orioles on Saturday afternoon. A day after delivering a walkoff homer, Encarnacion hit a three-run blast in the sixth inning and added a solo shot in the eighth.
“When you feel good, they can throw the ball on to the ground and you can still hit it,” he said through a translator.
Encarnacion emerged from an 0-for-19 slump on Friday with a solo shot to lead off the 10th inning, giving the Blue Jays a 4-3 win.
He picked up where he left off on a glorious spring afternoon with the 23rd multi-homer game of his career. Encarnacion also had an RBI double and two walks.
Michael Saunders followed Encarnacion’s second blast with a solo shot of his own. Encarnacion has 15 homers on the season, four more than Saunders.
Toronto (34-30) gained another game on the division-leading Orioles, who started the day with a one-game lead on the Boston Red Sox. The Blue Jays are now just 31⁄2 games off the pace.
“A tremendous day. We played good this whole series and really the last couple weeks,” said Toronto manager John Gibbons.
Toronto starter J.A. Happ (7-3) gave up homers to Manny Machado, Chris Davis and Joey Rickard but still pitched seven innings for the win. Davis and Rickard homered in the Orioles’ threerun fourth inning and Machado hit a solo shot in the sixth.
Happ allowed four earned runs and nine hits. He had five strikeouts and didn’t walk a batter.
Starter Mike Wright worked five innings plus a batter for Baltimore (36-25), giving up four earned runs, six hits and five walks while striking out three.
He said he was burned by the free passes,.
The Blue Jays, who outhit the Orioles 13-12, will try to win the four-game series today.
Happ worked three scoreless frames before Rickard hit a solo shot in the fourth that barely cleared the wall in left field. It was his fifth homer of the season.
Jason Grilli worked a scoreless ninth for Toronto.