Jays’ hits sound ‘like car crashes’
Encarnacion drives in four runs as Toronto completes four-game rout of Twins
Ten days ago the Blue Jays were a flawed team with a very good offence. They believed they were better than their .500 record but had little to show for it. They lacked a front-of-the-rotation starting pitcher, their bullpen was shallow, their shortstop was a defensive liability and left field remained a question mark. Then GM Alex Anthopoulos acquired five players in a span of four days leading up to the trade deadline and essentially plugged all the team’s holes.
He didn’t make them perfect, by any means, and nobody’s going to crown the Jays kings of anything after just a handful of wins.
But after this spirited and impressive homestand, it’s clear they are a far more dangerous club than they were a week ago — and they are playing like they know it, too.
“It’s fun, city’s buzzing,” said Mark Buehrle, who threw seven solidenough innings Thursday as the Jays won 9-3 to seal a four-game sweep of the Minnesota Twins. “You got that feeling every day coming to the field, ‘Who’s next? . . .‘Whose butt we going to kick today?’ That’s a good feeling. We haven’t had that the couple years I’ve been here.”
The Jays’ deep and relentless offence was on ample display throughout the series as they racked up 37 hits, eight homers and 26 runs, wresting away the second wild-card spot and leaving the Twins demoralized in the process.
The highest praise may have come from the opposing clubhouse, where Twins’ veteran outfielder Torii Hunter sounded shell-shocked after Thursday’s loss.
“There aren’t too many teams going to beat that team over there,” he told reporters, including The Associated Press’s Ian Harrison. “They’ve got a great squad. The way they hit the ball is just unbelievable. When they hit the ball, it sounds like car crashes.”
Winners of five straight games and eight of their last nine, the Jays now head into their biggest series of the season against the first-place Yankees with chests sufficiently puffed out.
“We got a big series coming up, it’s not a secret,” Buehrle said. “I don’t think this makes or breaks our season — we got a lot of games left — but it is a big series at this time (and) we’d like to go in there and win the series. But at the same time, if we don’t win the series, we’re not calling the season off. We got a great team and Alex did a great job of getting these guys in here.”
The Jays host New York for a threegame set a week later and both weekend games are already sold out. Those games are just as important, Buehrle said. “Hopefully we can get this place rocking when we come back home.”
With Thursday’s win the Jays remain undefeated with new shortstop Troy Tulowitzki in the starting lineup, losing just once in their last nine games when he happened to be given a day off.
“Shows you how smart I am,” manager John Gibbons said.
But on Thursday it was the everstreaky Edwin Encarnacion who led the way offensively, going 3-for-4 with a pair of RBI doubles and his second home run in as many games. The 32-year-old — who leads the majors in “no doubt” homers, as calculated by ESPN’s Home Run Tracker — seems to be in the midst of another one of his hot streaks. He extended his hit streak to nine games on Thursday, a stretch in which he has gone 14-for-31.
Buehrle said there’s a “special feeling” inside the Jays’ clubhouse right now.
“I felt the same way in ’05 when we won the World Series (with the Chicago White Sox). There were times we’d be down two runs in the seventh inning and we’d be like, ‘We don’t care, we’re going to win this game. Somehow we’re going to find a way to win this game.’ I don’t know if it’s the guys we brought in here and the way we’re feeling now . . . There’s just a special feeling.”