THAT’S MORE LIKE IT
Blue Jays go deep five times in victory over Cleveland,
John Gibbons said he wasn’t panicking after the Blue Jays’ big-budget offence managed just nine hits and three runs through its first two games.
His club was built to score, he said, and eventually it would. The Jays’ speed, thus far absent, would come into play when they got on base — and they would get on base.
He wasn’t going to lose any sleep over a couple of games. Now Gibbons can sleep even more soundly and restless Jays fans also can breathe a little easier.
“I don’t care what level of baseball you’re at, that first one’s the toughest one to get,” Gibbons said after his Jays won their first game of the season, a lively 10-8 victory over the Cleveland Indians on Thursday night.
With the looming threat of a seasonopening sweep, the Jays bats awoke at last and in bombastic fashion.
“Hopefully some people can step off the ledge a little bit,” Mark Buehrle, the veteran lefty who gave up six runs through 5.1 innings in his Jays debut, said jokingly. “Obviously we would have liked to get off to a better start and win the series, but we know where we’re at and we just need to keep on battling.”
Catcher J.P. Arencibia led the way in the onslaught, going 3-for-4 with a pair of solo homers, while Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion and Colby Rasmus each added one long ball in front of an announced crowd of 19,515.
But Thursday was no cake walk for the home side. It was a back-andforth affair that saw the Indians twice hold the lead, tie the game in the sixth and threaten to claw back right up until the final frame.
The way the ball was flying at the Rogers Centre, no lead was safe. The Jays and Indians combined for atotal of seven homers on the night.
Bautista launched his second in as many games, a never-in-doubt laser beam into the second deck in left field in the first inning to set the tone for the night and give the Jays their first lead, while Encarnacion muscled the game back into the Jays’ hands with a three-run shot in the fifth to retake the lead.
The Dominican duo combined to drive in six runs, displaying the meat-of-the-order power-pop for which they will be counted upon this season.
Even Rasmus, who had yet to register a hit through his first 21⁄ games, stroked a homer into the right-field seats with his elegant swing in the sixth. Along with Arencibia’s second blast — a fly ball that just carried and carried until it plopped into the Jays bullpen — Rasmus’s solo shot gave the Jays’ a much-needed cushion, which came in handy as the Indians scratched out a pair of runs in the seventh and eighth to draw within one.
Beyond the ballistics, leadoff man Jose Reyes stole his first base and scored three runs, while fellow speedster Emilio Bonifacio plated the game-winning run after a bout of pesky base-running when he stretched a base hit into a double and scored two plays later. “As soon as I hit the ball I was thinking second,” Bonifacio . He also made a key play on a Carlos Santana groundball with the bases loaded in the eighth. “Bonifacio saved that game for us,” Arencibia said. “He’s a special guy,” Gibbons said, adding that after Bonifacio was acquired from the Marlins in November, Jays GM Alex Anthopoulos fielded “a lot of calls” about the versatile player. “He can do a lot of things and he’s dangerous.” All the elements of the Jays offence were in play Thursday. “That’s just an overall sample of what we can bring to the table when individuals do what they’re capable of doing,” said Bautista, who left the game in the ninth having twisted an ankle while running out a groundball. He expects to play Friday. Closer Casey Janssen pitched on back-to-back days for the first time, earning the save with a clean ninth and wiping away any lingering doubts about his health issues. STAR DISPATCHES: They’re Back: Why the 2013 Blue Jays Might Win it All, Rosie DiManno’s new eRead published by Toronto Star’s eRead program Star Dispatches, is available. For more info, go to stardispatches.com.