Rays’ Snell picks up 21st victory
TORONTO — Blake Snell came out on top of a pitchers duel against Ryan Borucki, winning his Major League Baseball-leading 21st game as the Tampa Bay Rays downed the Toronto Blue Jays, 5-2, in American League action Sunday.
Snell shut out the Blue Jays (71-85), limiting them to three hits and two walks over
6 2/3 innings of work and had 11 strikeouts.
Fellow lefty Borucki gave up two runs, three hits and four walks across seven innings while striking out seven.
The 24-year-old picked up his 11th quality outing in his 15th start but dropped to 4-5.
The 25-year-old Snell was replaced by right-hander Chaz Roe in the seventh for one out.
Andrew Kittredge gave up two earned runs in 2/3 of an inning, Ryan Stanek came in for an out to close out the eighth and Sergio Romo pitched a scoreless ninth for his 23rd save.
Joe Biagini spelled Borucki in the eighth, giving up a solo home run in two-thirds of an inning. Jose Fernandez gave up two earned runs in one-third of an inning.
David Paulino pitched a perfect ninth for the Blue Jays
C.J. Cron was 2 for 4 with solo home run and an RBI double, Brandon Lowe hit a two-run shot and Joey Wendle added an RBI double to provide the scoring for the Rays (87-68).
Aldemys Diaz was 1 for 4 with an RBI single and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. was 0 for 4 with an RBI ground out as the Jays picked up two late runs.
Borucki cruised until the fourth inning when he ran into some trouble. After giving up a lead single to Tommy Pham, the left-fielder stole second and advanced into scoring position on a fly out by Cron.
Wendle proceeded to rip a double up the right-field line with two out, plating Pham to score the first run of the game.
Borucki managed to limit the damage by inducing a ground out from Lowe.
The Rays picked up their second run in the sixth frame.
Borucki walked Pham with one out and sacrifice bunt by Matt Duffy allowed him to advance to second.
Cron then slapped a groundrule double to right field to score Pham.
After Borucki got the hook in eighth, Cron connected on a solo jack to left-centre field to extend Tampa’s lead to 3-0.