Jays finish what they start against O’s
The Blue Jays remain buried well below .500, but somehow manager John Gibbons must find that light at the end of the tunnel or else be crushed by the oncoming train.
Thursday was one of those moments of light.
The Jays trailed by three in the ninth inning on Thursday night against last-place Baltimore at the Rogers Centre, but rallied to win 5-4 — tying it against Orioles closer Brad Brach, then winning on a two-out, walk-off single by Aledmys Diaz off exJay Miguel Castro that scored Teoscar Hernandez from second base in the 10th.
“It shows as a team we haven’t put our heads down,” Diaz said via translator Josue Peley. “It’s not easy in this league when you’re missing time with injury. But I’ve been feeling better knowing that I’m going to be there every day, working hard early. Everything’s getting into place and things are going to get better.”
The key hit in the ninth-inning rally was a two-run double by Randal Grichuk that pulled the Jays to within one. Grichuk then scored the tying run with solid baserunning and an imaginative slide on a single to centre by Kevin Pillar.
“Off the bat, I thought it was definitely getting down, then kind of had to read it,” Grichuk said. “I saw it was about to get down and took off. I thought (third-base coach Luis Rivera) was going to stop me, but I was running hard and he sent me.”
But the entire comeback was keyed by Grichuk’s double to the opposite field that made it a one-run game, setting up the Pillar hit and mad dash home.
“Right now, a couple of things mechanically I’m able to do are allowing me to put the ball in play,” Grichuk said, “laying off pitches out of the zone, being able to put borderline pitches in play that I wasn’t able to do earlier in the year.”
Left-hander Jaime Garcia be- came the fourth straight Jays starter to work at least six innings and allow three runs or fewer. Garcia bounced back from his shortest outing of the season —12⁄ 3innings against the Tigers — to post six meandering innings in which he allowed just one run on four hits, with three walks and six strikeouts. It wasn’t pretty, pitching in and out of trouble, but the bottom line is he gave the Jays a chance to win. The last streak of four quality starts was from Sept. 21 to 28, 2016.
After the O’s took a 1-0 lead on a Manny Machado sacrifice fly in the first, Jays leadoff man Curtis Granderson crushed a pitch into the second deck in right field off 24-year-old rookie David Hess. For the 37-yearold outfielder, it was his 324th career homer, fifth for the Jays and 46th leading off a game. It was also the first run scored by the Jays after 15 scoreless innings.
As for the O’s, they entered the night 29th in the league in runs scored, with Chris Davis — normally one of the most-feared left-handed power hitters in the game — driving in just 15 in 54 games. The biggest out for Garcia was striking Davis out with the bases loaded to end the sixth.