Bautista powers Jays to victory over Rangers

TORONTO 3 TEXAS 1

TORONTO — Jose Bautista’s threerun homer was all the offence the Toronto Blue Jays would need as they extended their winning streak to five games with a 3-1 victory over the Texas Rangers on Saturday at Rogers Centre.

Toronto (23-26) is now three games under .500 and will be going for a season-high winning streak this afternoon.

“We’re playing good baseball,” said Jays manager John Gibbons. “We’ve picked it up and we always felt confident with the guys who have been filling in basically for the last six weeks in some key spots and they’ve just stepped up.”

Bautista’s ninth homer of the season — and eighth this month — came on the first pitch of his at-bat against Texas starter Yu Darvish (5-3) in the fifth inning.

Luke Maile reached on a walk and Devon Travis singled two batters later to set the stage for Bautista. Travis extended his hitting streak to 11 games.

Blue Jays starter Marco Estrada (4-2) largely kept Texas batters off-balance all game with eight strikeouts over six innings of work.

The only blemish came on his first pitch of the game when Shin-Soo Choo crushed his fifth homer of the season to dead centre before most of the 46,825 fans in attendance were even in their seats.

Roberto Osuna retired the Rangers in order in the ninth for his ninth save and second in as many nights. He finished the game by striking out Ryan Rua.

Darvish had the Blue Jays’ number early. He didn’t give up a hit until Kendrys Morales’ oneout double in the fourth.

The simmering feud between the two clubs is never far from mind and there was a reminder when Darvish hit Russell Martin with a pitch in the second inning. Martin, who started at third base, stared down the Texas pitcher on his way to first and then shared a few words with the Texas dugout.

The game took three hours, 16 minutes to play.