Jays roll to 11th straight win
Streak continues with 4-2 victory in sweep of Oakland A’s
TORONTO — Eventually, this Blue Jays winning streak will come to an end, but the ride continued for another day Thursday thanks to a little good fortune and some timely bottom-of-the-order contributions.
Victory No. 11 in a row — the second 11-game winning streak this year — was a mostly tidy 4-2 win over the Oakland A’s, completing a three-game sweep before a sellout crowd of 46,902 at the Rogers Centre. It was the seventh sellout of the year.
This victory came with Troy Tulowitzki getting a rare day off and Edwin Encarnacion another day to let his jammed right middle finger heal a little more.
But these days, it doesn’t seem to matter who is in or who is out for the Jays. They find a way to win.
“We’ll lose at least one more game, I would think,” Jays manager John Gibbons said.
His starter and Thursday’s winner, Mark Buehrle, took it a step further.
“You can put me on record saying we’re not going to win the rest of our games from here on out,” Buehrle said. “But it’s fun. We don’t like to talk about it and don’t pay too much attention to it. Every day is a new day and we go out there and try to play the best game that day and try to win.”
Buehrle was up in the zone early on but, as he has done over his 16-year career, he made the adjustments and stuck around for seven mostly strong innings, scattering seven hits and allowing two runs — both in the eighth.
But his first inning had to be one of the more unique scoreless frames he has produced. It opened up with a walk, but only after an apparent leadoff double was negated by video replay. A routine fly ball to centre off Mark Canha’s bat followed, but Kevin Pillar lost it in the high-noon sun and it dropped for a single.
Jose Bautista then appeared to have a read on Brett Lawrie’s line drive to deep right, but the overthe-shoulder catch was dropped when he slammed into the outfield wall loading the bases with nobody out.
However, Danny Valencia then did his former teammate a favour hitting a comebacker to the mound.
Buehrle, an above average fielder among pitchers, took it cleanly and threw home to start a 1-2-3 double play.
And with two out and runners on second and third, catcher Josh Phegley ended the inning when his liner went off Buehrle’s pitching hand and was redirected to Cliff Pennington at second, who barehanded the now bouncing ball for an inning-ending out at first.
“He got out of that bases loaded jam with no outs (in the first inning) and that really sums him up,” Gibbons said. “He’s got that knack of making a big pitch.”
With the win, Buehrle improved to 13-5 on the year.
Roberto Osuna came on in the ninth for a scoreless frame, although he did bring the tying run to the plate after a double by Josh Reddick. Osuna got Coco Crisp to fly out to right to end the game and earn his 12th save of the year.
Buehrle got all the offence he would need in the second inning — and good thing too, because after that, A’s replacement starter Jesse Chavez was almost unhittable.
Chavez got the start when scheduled starter Sonny Gray had to be replaced because of back spasms.
The four-run second, though, was enough to spoil Chavez’s afternoon. Dioner Navarro singled, took third on Justin Smoak’s single into the corner in right and scored on a Pillar chip shot into shallow right.
Ryan Goins then cleared the bases with a three-run homer to deep right on a pitch that was eyeball height to make it 4-0 Jays.
It was his fourth of the year and seventh of his career, six of them coming at the Rogers Centre.