Twin blasts give Jays a lift over Astros
Encarnacion first to homer twice in an inning since Joe Carter in ’93
BLUE JAYS 12, ASTROS 6
TORONTO After six innings, Toronto Blue Jays fans were grumbling about their lacklustre team. After seven, they began to realize that things could be a lot worse.
They could be stuck rooting for the Houston Astros.
Leading 6-4, the hapless Houstons gave up eight runs on a laundry list of mistakes in the seventh. They walked in a run, hit a batter trying to bunt and committed two errors.
Oh, yes, and they gave up three home runs. Edwin Encarnacion led off the frame with a homer and capped the rally with a grand slam — the first time a Blue Jay has homered twice in the same inning since Joe Carter did it on Oct. 3, 1993.
Immediately after Encarnacion’s first homer, Adam Lind tied the score with a blast of his own.
When the calculators were tucked away, it all added up to a 12-6 win for the Blue Jays, who have taken advantage of baseball’s worst team twice in a row after suffering through a seven-game losing streak.
Astros reliever Hector Ambriz was one strike away from escaping with just a two-run deficit when Encarnacion hit his second line shot over the left-field wall and brought roughly 24,000 fans to their feet. They continued roaring after he entered the dugout, so he hopped back out for a curtain call.
Until the seventh, Jays fans had every reason to gripe and moan. R.A. Dickey was doing another Jekyll-and-Hyde performance, giving and taking, hanging in there for six innings but leaving at a 5-4 disadvantage.
Homers continue to haunt Dickey, who has allowed 24, tied for the most in the majors. Thirty-eight of the 81 runs he has surrendered have come on homers, and 10 of those have come with runners on base.
Light-hitting Astros rookie Marc Krauss joined the parade with a two-run shot off a hanging knuckleball in the second inning.
As he fielded pre-game questions about his starter, Toronto manager John Gibbons said Dickey’s knuckleball command can be fickle.
“It’s so different with him,” Gibbons said. “One inning that knuckleball can be dancing, moving all over the place and have a lot of bite to it, and then next inning, or maybe (the next) hitter, it flattens out a little bit. It’s not quite as crisp. But then next inning it goes right back … It can go hitter to hitter.”
That pretty well summed up Dickey’s outing. He allowed seven hits and struck out eight. He retired the side in order only once. He allowed the leadoff batter to reach base four times.
After the Jays tied the score at 2-2 in the third, Dickey gave up two in the fourth. After they tied it at 4-4 in the fifth, he gave up a run in the sixth.
Dustin McGowan compounded the fans’ misery by allowing a run in the top of the seventh. But then came the avalanche, triggered by Encarnacion and Lind going back-to-back, starting an inning that seemed to last a lifetime. But for the Jays, it was a good life.
Toronto hit five homers in all, with Jose Reyes connecting in the third and Brett Lawrie in the fifth.
Reyes finished a triple shy of the cycle. Lawrie also doubled and walked.
And Colby Rasmus continued his hot streak with two doubles and two singles. During his past 23 games, he is batting .381.