Travis continues to impress in return to bigs
Except Jose Bautista singled through the hole, scoring Travis. So make that four runs before Kimbrel induced Josh Donaldson to pop out.
Right. So where were we? Oh yeah, Ortiz doing his big-bop thing before Floyd set down the middle of the order. Kimbrel coolly dusted off Edwin Encarnacion, pop-up, and Michael Saunders, KO’d swinging. Two down. But the Jays would not go quietly on this day.
Justin Smoak, with a tidy swing, singled up the middle, Ezequiel Carrera summoned to pinch run. With Martin in the box, Carrera promptly stole second and advanced to third on a throwing error by catcher Christian Vasquez.
Kimbrel had Martin at 0-2, was still in command of the situation. But Martin — who’d connected for his third home run in the sixth; that’s a trio of jacks in the past four games — got good wood for a double to tie it at 9s. Kimbrel’s wild pitch scoots Martin to third, bringing up Travis.
Again Kimbrel has a Toronto batter at 0-2. But the young second
baseman has been manna from heaven since he returned to the Jays’ lineup from a protracted DL stretching way back to last season. How very much the team has missed him.
The baseball gods were still smiling down on Travis, whose modest squibbler down the third-base line seemed destined for the final out, extra innings looming. Except Travis Shaw couldn’t peg the throw to first, pulling Hanley Ramirez off the bag.
Was it a hit? Was it an error? Didn’t
matter. Martin was pounding his way to the plate, game-over.
“I wasn’t really too sure,” Travis admitted later, although the penny dropped quickly enough, triggering his dance-around beyond the bag.
A double in the eighth, too, for Travis, his first extra-base hit of the year.
It’s been a remarkably smooth transition back to baseball for the 25-year-old Floridian, after a litany of injury woes and complications. Yet doesn’t look like he’s missed a beat.
“I think the biggest thing is the guys, you know. I had a lot of nerves early on. Just being back here with the guys, having them behind me, pumping me up and helping me calm down, that’s been a big help for me.’’
Certainly looked calm enough on that crucial ninth inning at-bat.
“I fought off the first ball, took a terrible swing at the second slider. I was just trying to battle, put the ball in play. Good things happen sometime.”
A Kimbrel fastball was immensely
to his liking. But none of it would have come to pass without Martin getting on base ahead of him.
“He had a huge game today,” Travis enthused. “0-2 backside home run, clutch hit there, huge hit against one of the best closers in the game.’’ Clutch, baby, indeed. It was Martin’s advance to third, however, that teed up the winning run. Smart situational baseball.
Martin, on his scramble to third: “(Vasquez) blocked it. It was in front of him but then I recognized that he didn’t know where the ball was. I took a chance and it worked out.’’
Didn’t think twice either on Travis’, was off like a shot on contact.
Hustle baseball and a hard-earned win against a no-quit opponent.
“I think we just realized that we’re playing a tough team,” said Martin.
“At this point we believe that we have a good team and we’re just going to keep our focus and keep grinding through no matter what happens. We can always find a way to get runners on and, also, if the other team makes a mistake, capitalizing on mistakes.”
What it all signifies in the bigger picture, who knows? Enough to savour this one, for now. Two of three off Boston. Sunday: The return of David Price. Oh.