Saunders’ hits three homers to power Jays
DRIVES IN EIGHT
• Michael Saunders has called this his year of redemption.
That might be true if you thought he had anything that needed redeeming. He missed most of last season, his first as a Toronto Blue Jay, because of a flukish injury. Not his fault.
No, more to the point, this has to be Saunders’ year of revelation. Who knew the Victoria native had this kind of season just waiting to get out?
And it j ust keeps getting better. Friday night he demolished the Baltimore Orioles single- handedly, pounding out three home runs — his 13th, 14 th and 15th — and drove in a careerhigh eight runs, setting the tone for a 13- 3 Toronto win in the opening game of a key three- game series against the American League East Division leaders.
Josh Donaldson chimed in with a homer, a triple and a walk, scoring all three times. Justin Smoak accounted for Toronto’s other two runs, with his seventh home run of the season.
Aaron Sanchez improved his record to 7-1 with a performance that was much better than his numbers. He tossed six innings, allowed seven hits and two runs but twice he changed the complexion of the game by pitching out of bases-loaded jams in the first and third innings.
But this was Saunders’ moment in the spotlight all by himself.
At the end of the day, Saunders is hitting .314 for the season, with those 15 home runs and 22 RBI. He has hit all up and down the lineup this season, most recently as the cleanup man batting behind Jose Bautista, Donaldson and Edwin Encarnacion. His defence in left field has been steady and he has, for the most part, avoided the injury bug.
Throughout the season, after spending so much time rehabbing by himself last summer, missing the game terribly, he has savoured every minute with the Blue Jays, living out the dream he brought with him from Seattle.
This game would not have been the runaway that it was had Sanchez collapsed under the weight of those two bases-loaded situations.
In the first inning, after two men reached base on balls that Toronto defenders Kevin Pillar and Justin Smoak normally convert into outs, Sanchez allowed one run to score and found himself in a bases- loaded, nobody out situation. He bowed his neck and struck out two men then got Jonathan Schoop on a ground ball out to strand all three runners.
In t he t hird, t he Orioles loaded the bases with one run in and one out but Ryan Goins turned Manny Machado’s pop up i nto medium right field into a double-play when he gunned down Machado trying to tag and score.