The Province

Switch hitters

The Blue Jays mix up their batting lineup, and it pays off with a win over the Rangers

- BY JOHN LOTT POSTMEDIA NEWS

TORONTO — Overnight, John Farrell checked out the horizon and decided to zoom in.

On Tuesday, the Blue Jays manager was asked if he might try to jolt the top of his lineup by swapping his No. 1 and No. 2 hitters, Yunel Escobar and Kelly Johnson.

“That might be something we take a look at sometime here on the near horizon,” he said, sipping from his well of ambiguity.

On Wednesday, he went ahead and did it. Johnson batted first, Escobar second. The new arrangemen­t produced a home run and a walk for Johnson, and a triple, double and single for Escobar as well as five RBIS in an 11-5 win over the Texas Rangers.

Asked whether it made any difference whether he batted first or second, Johnson quipped: “Eleven runs difference today, so I guess we’ll stay with it.”

Eleven runs is indeed a big deal for the Blue Jays, who had averaged 4.7 runs-per game and had not topped nine all season.

Even bigger was that they did it against the Texas Rangers, who entered the series with a 16-6 record, the best pitching and offence in baseball and Yu Darvish on the mound for the opening game. Texas won that one, but the Jays’ offence awakened in the next two and, improbably, saddled the Rangers with two straight losses for the first time this season.

Afterward, Farrell raved about the Johnson-escobar tandem, but when asked whether this alignment is permanent, he slipped into deliberate imprecisio­n.

“Right now, we may look to go with that a little bit,” he said.

There was also a familiar and timely contributi­on from Edwin Encarnacio­n, who hit his ninth homer. It was a three-run shot in the sixth inning, shortly after the Rangers crept uncomforta­bly close with a four-run flurry that cut the locals’ lead to 8-5.

Encarnacio­n is batting .320 and has homered in five of his past six games.

Of his 31 hits this season, 17 have gone for extra bases.

That made Toronto starter Ricky Romero think back to the days when Encarnacio­n was anything but a fan favourite.

“He’s having fun,” Romero said. “Just to think of what happened to him last year and the boos he was receiving in this stadium, to see him succeed and the way he overcame all that stuff, it’s been tremendous. He has a lot of passion and [he is] definitely a heck of a hitter.”

Seriously, Johnson said, it really makes no difference whether he hits first or second. He and Escobar each did both when they were teammates in Atlanta.

Farrell noted that Johnson always has shown a knack for getting on base (. 344 career OBP), but seemed to think the move might been a bigger boost for Escobar, whose basesloade­d triple keyed a six-run fourth inning.

Escobar raised his average 17 points to .234.

“I don’t want to say it was a pure shakeup of the lineup, but sometimes you put a guy in a different slot and all of a sudden they have a different view and maybe a fresh start,” Farrell said.

Romero (4-0, 3.64 ERA) was coasting with an 8-1 lead when he walked the first three batters in the fifth, setting up a four-run inning. But he settled down after that, finishing eight innings and retiring 12 of the final 13 batters he faced.

Farrell started seven right-handed batters against Texas starter Matt Harrison, who was holding left-handed hitters to an average of .094. Harrison could not survive the fourth inning.

After a 4-2 homestand, the Jays head west for a 10-game trip to Anaheim, Oakland and Minnesota. If their offence has truly emerged from its funk, the timing could hardly be better.

“Any time you play these teams that are really good, there’s a different vibe, a different feel when you beat them,” Johnson said. “It gives you a big boost. It gives you a high.”

Before the game, Toronto sent rookie Evan Crawford, a left-handed reliever, to triple-a Las Vegas and recalled right-hander Joel Carreno. Farrell said he wanted another righthande­d reliever to face Texas in the series finale and the upcoming Los Angeles Angels, whose lineups are predominan­tly right-handed.

Carreno, who made a spot start in the season’s first series in Cleveland, worked a 1-2-3 ninth inning, notching two strikeouts.

 ?? — REUTERS ?? Toronto Blue Jays shortstop Yunel Escobar hits a triple to drive in three runs during the fourth inning of their American League game against the Texas Rangers in Toronto on Wednesday.
— REUTERS Toronto Blue Jays shortstop Yunel Escobar hits a triple to drive in three runs during the fourth inning of their American League game against the Texas Rangers in Toronto on Wednesday.

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