Jays bats come alive in Boston
Toronto piles up 17 hits in win over Red Sox
BOSTON — On another night of pitching perdition in Boston, wherein batters beefed up their averages and baserunners proliferated like fruit flies, Edwin Encarnacion and Jose Bautista started to stir.
When the Blue Jays score 11 runs and pile up 17 hits, you might expect that those two sluggers would be in the middle of it. But April has been unkind to both of them.
For the month, Encarnacion and Bautista were batting a combined .160, a figure that flatters Bautista. But in the Jays’ 11-8 win over the Red Sox on Tuesday night, they produced as their fans have come to expect.
Bautista whacked his fifth homer — and ninth hit — of the season and also delivered an RBI single and sacrifice fly. Encarnacion contributed two run-scoring singles.
Given the state of the Jays’ moribund pitching staff, there is no small consolation in finally getting a rise out of their No. 3 and 4 hitters, who combined for 69 homers and 201 RBIs last year.
Not that they were particularly worried. Before the game, Encarnacion recited the refrain of the veteran hitter facing five more months in the regular season.
“I’ve been worse before,” he said of his slow start. “I know it’s a long season and I have a lot of time to recover and I know I’m going to do it. I know I have my talent.”
Perhaps Encarnacion has been worse before, but he certainly has been bad this month. His early season pattern has been inconsistent since 2011, but he had a huge May last year — 16 homers and 33 RBIs — and typically finds greater consistency when the weather heats up.
On Monday night, Encarnacion’s frustration boiled over after he struck out swinging in the third inning. He fired his bat to the ground in disgust, in part because he vehemently disagreed with a called strike earlier in the at-bat.
“Some little frustration when they call bad pitches,” he said. “After the game, you refresh and you know it’s part of the game. The umpires are not perfect.”
One night later, a little progress: disciplined at-bats and clutch singles in the third and fourth innings.
With the Jays hovering around .500, Encarnacion knows some fans are growing impatient, with him as well as the team. Patience, he urged.
“I know that people outside, they don’t understand, but I understand,” he said. “I know that this is part of this game. It’s going to be past. It’s going to be different in the next couple months.”
Meanwhile, Bautista served as the DH for the second straight game because of his sore right shoulder. On a night when no lead seemed safe, his homer in the eighth gave the Jays a three-run cushion. Josh Donaldson capped the scoring in the ninth with another homer, his fifth, and his third hit of the night.
Drew Hutchison followed a terrific start with an ugly one. He allowed six runs, nine hits and five walks in 4 1/3 innings. For Jays fans, lots of tense moments followed, but the bullpen, much-maligned lately, hung on to help snap Toronto’s four-game losing streak. Marco Estrada worked three shutout innings and earned the win. New closer Brett Cecil got the save with a one-hit ninth.
The game took four hours and one minute to complete. The teams combined for 30 hits and left 21 on base.