Blue Jays notebook: Gibbons dials down fears after Donaldson limps off late
With the Blue Jays leading the Baltimore Orioles 9-1 on Saturday afternoon, third baseman Josh Donaldson legged out an infield single on a slow roller to short. But the reigning American League MVP seemed to grimace as he ran through the bag and was lifted for a pinch runner. After the game, manager John Gibbons said Donaldson’s hamstring “tightened up” on him, but the club doesn’t expect him to miss any time. “We don’t think it’s a big deal,” Gibbons said. Donaldson went 2 for 3 plus a pair of walks, boosting his on-base percentage to .412, the fourth-best mark in the AL. CROWDED HOUSE An announced crowd of 47,305, their 24th sellout of the season, saw the Jays move into first place in the AL East. They lead the AL in attendance and are now averaging 40,276, which trails only the NL’s Los Angeles Dodgers, St. Louis Cardinals and San Francisco Giants. They are also enjoying by far the largest year-overyear increase of any team in the majors — up by about 10,600 on average. The team with the nextbiggest bump is the New York Mets, drawing almost 5,000 more fans per game. HOT SUMMER Although the Jays’ offence got off to a slow start to the season, they continue to stay hot through the summer and after Saturday’s nine-run outburst now trail only the Boston Red Sox in runs scored in the AL. Since June 1 they are averaging 5.8 per game, and if you start counting from June 11 no team in the majors has scored more. Edwin Encarnacion collected his major-league-leading 89th RBI on Saturday, while Russell Martin drove in a pair and now has 31 RBIs in his last 46 games. HAPP 3.16 J.A. Happ, who shrunk his earned run average to 3.16 on Saturday, earned his 15th quality start (at least six innings with three runs or fewer allowed). In fact, the Jays’ rotation leads the American League with 66 quality starts this year. For Happ, Saturday was actually the 11th time in 21 starts that he has held the opposition to one run or zero. The 33-yearold lefty, who has won eight consecutive decisions, struck out 11 batters for the second time this season and now has a 36.3 per cent whiff rate for July, the highest mark in the majors for the month.