Blue Jays trending in right direction
Hutchison has solid start as club wins fourth straight
A beautiful sunny sky, an open roof, five stolen bases and a season-high winning streak made for a party-like atmosphere for the Blue Jays at the Rogers Centre Saturday afternoon.
And though a 7-2 win over Houston capped a great day and further established the sense of a positive run for the home team, the afternoon didn’t go by without at least one drawback.
Unfortunately for the high-flying Jays, Edwin Encarnacion, their No. 4 hitter, came out of the contest with a sore left shoulder.
It was sore enough, in fact, for a cortisone injection post-game, one that will keep Encarnacion out of Sunday’s series finale with Houston and possibly Monday’s game against the Miami Marlins as well.
“Today it was getting worse, so I got it (injection) done,” said Encarnacion, who was pulled from the game in the eighth inning for pinch hitter Justin Smoak, who promptly delivered a two-run double.
“I started feeling it after the first at-bat. It will be one day (out of the lineup) and we’ll see how I feel after.”
Encarnacion, should he be down for a day or two, wouldn’t be a major loss for the Jays, who are scoring runs despite what has been a 7for-34 slump for the cleanup hitter.
Toronto won for a season-high fourth straight time and will go for the sweep against the American League-leading Astros Sunday. Heavy on the team’s mind is a fourgame sweep by the Astros in Houston last month, a setback that prompted a players-only meeting called by Josh Donaldson and Russell Martin.
Since that four-game wipeout, Toronto has gone 9-7, and 5-1 in their last six. Over the four-game winning streak, they’ve outscored opponents 28-7, further padding baseball’s most potent offence, which has scored at least six runs in its last13 wins (110-35 edge in runs).
But the Jays, fighting a shoulder injury to Jose Bautista that lasted over 25 games, were forced to juggle plans with their lineup, including playing Encarnacion in the field more than originally planned. The wear and tear of that extra load may have finally appeared in his current shoulder issue.
It’s also the third shoulder related problem to a starting player, with Bautista and Devon Travis (still at least two weeks away from a return) also battling shoulder injuries.
Toronto remained one of the top scoring teams in baseball throughout the ordeals but slid as low as five games below .500 due to an underachieving starting rotation and bullpen.
Most of the pitching woes are being swept away, with Drew Hutchison anchoring Saturday’s win with 61⁄
3 innings of six-hitter marked a stretch where starters have gone at least six innings in 15 of 17 games.
And on Saturday, with Hutchison continuing that trend, Toronto swiped five bases in a game for the first time since Sept. 5, 2011.
The end result is a small win streak but in an under-achieving American League East still waiting for a team to establish itself as a leader, the Jays are beginning to feel like that team.
“I have that feeling,” Jays manager John Gibbons said, when asked if the four wins are the start of something bigger. “It’s a confident team, we’re close to being back to full strength (health). We can score a lot of runs . . . I can’t remember a big-league team that scores that way, that often.”
Jose Reyes, whose aggressiveness on the bases has cost his team at times this year, never let up Saturday, logging three of the five stolen bases. Chris Colabello extended his hitting streak to 16 games, the longest active streak in baseball, while Kevin Pillar had two RBI and Josh Donaldson — after being hit by a pitch — reached base safely for the 36th straight game against Houston.