Drury’s blast gives Jays sweep over A’s
Clearly, Brandon Drury isn’t prepared to take a back seat to anyone when it comes to playing time, even if that someone is top prospect Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
Drury, the Toronto Blue Jays primary third baseman before you-know-who was called up on Friday, drilled a three-run homer off A’s closer Blake Treinen in the bottom of the 11th inning to tie the game at 4-4, then watched Justin Smoak single home Freddy Galvis with the winning run to give the Jays an improbable 5-4 walk-off win on Sunday at Rogers Centre.
Drury’s big blast came two days after he ripped a game-winning, two-run bomb to give the Jays a 4-2 walk-off win over Oakland. Sunday’s game-tying homer was the first in extra innings for the 25-year-old.
“I’ve got a little confidence going with some big hits,” Drury said. “I felt good out there again today and was glad I was able to help the team win. Baseball is a game of confidence, and getting big hits and homers is going to give you confidence.”
With Guerrero expected to occupy third base for, oh, about the next decade or two, Drury has been forced to slide to second base if he wants to stay in Toronto. He’s played 146 career games at second, so it’s not like he’s learning a brand new position, but there will be some adjustments.
“Yeah, I definitely have to do extra work,” Drury said. “It’s not as natural for me as third base.”
Drury turned on a 95 m.p.h. sinker from Treinen to pull the Jays even in the 11th. It was his fourth home run of the season.
Four batters later, with Galvis and Danny Jansen aboard, Smoak singled off Treinen to give the Jays the come-from-behind win and move them to .500 for the first time since March 31.
“It’s awesome any time you get a walk-off,” Smoak said. “We had some big at-bats, a big homer, and I was able to find a hole there at the end.”
It was an unexpected ending to a game that had featured little in the way of offence for the first 10 innings. But then the A’s blew it open with three runs in the top of the 11th and appeared on their way to their first win in the six-game season series.
A’s centre-fielder Ramon Laureano hit a sacrifice fly off Toronto reliever Thomas Pannone to score Stephen Piscotty with one out in the 11th, then catcher Josh Phegley drove home ex-Jay Kendrys Morales with a double off the left field wall.
Elvis Luciano took over for Pannone and hit the first batter he faced, Matt Chapman, with the bases loaded to plate another run. He then induced a fly ball from Khris Davis to end the inning.
“He’s just a better hitter than the .100 he was hitting, or the .180,” Jays manager Charlie Montoyo said of Drury. “He’s gonna get hot, he’s gonna hit. To hit a three-run homer against one of the best relievers in baseball, you have to be locked in.”
Budding fan favourite Eric Sogard had another big night at the plate, going 3-for-5 with a leadoff homer, to run his hitting streak to 10 games. The Jays shortstop has hit leadoff home runs in two of the last three games while providing a spark at the top of the lineup. dpollard@postmedia.com