Blue Jays: Hot hitting from Encarnacion, Travis helps team overcome rough start by Dickey against Rays
Edwin Encarnacion approached a significant Blue Jays milestone Monday with a huge night at the plate, but it came down to the red-hot Devon Travis to send the Jays to a 7-5 win over the Tampa Bay Rays at the Rogers Centre.
Encarnacion had a solo homer and a two-run single, staking the Jays to a pair of two-run leads. But Tampa Bay wiped out both of them against Jays starter R.A. Dickey.
It wasn’t until the seventh inning, when the Jays loaded the bases with none out, that things finally turned for a Jays offence that had been stalling frequently over the past two weeks. Travis slapped a single up the middle with the infield drawn in, his fourth hit in five trips to the plate, to break a 4-4 tie. Jose Bautista followed with a two-run double.
The Jays offence batted just .193 during a 4-3 road trip last week. There was just enough power — 10 homers and 17 RBIs — but a whopping 84 strikeouts over that span, all of which left Toronto in need of a reaffirming performance.
Encarnacion’s homer — a 375-foot blast in the Jays’ two-run first inning, gave him a team-leading 31 on the season. It also gave him 299 for his career.
Encarnacion is looking to become just the 12th active player in the majors to reach the 300-homer plateau. His 28 homers since May 1 top the majors over that span.
Travis, who entered the record books with leadoff homers in consec- utive games last week, had scored a pair of runs as part of his four-hit night. He has gone 12-for-19 in his last five games, and entered the game batting .345 in his previous 21 games.
That hot streak has raised his average to .304 overall, and the Jays will continue to ride him out of the leadoff spot unless he shows signs of cooling off significantly.
Travis recorded his first career triple with a liner to right field to lead off the bottom half of the first inning. Rays right fielder Mike Mahtook came up short on a diving catch attempt, and had the ball scoot all the way to the fence. Travis scored on Bautista’s sacrifice fly.
Rays starter Jake Odorizzi hung around until there was one out in the sixth, and though his 107 pitch effort was far from tidy he limited the damage to a pair of two-run innings.
Toronto, after Encarnacion’s two run single in the fourth, managed just two hits until Travis struck with the bases loaded in the seventh.
Even so, the Jays had Melvin Upton strike out and pinch-hitter Justin Smoak ground back to the pitcher for a forceout at home before Travis came through with his clutch single.
Dickey gave up three doubles in the Rays’ fourth as the visitors erased a 2-0 lead. He surrendered another pair of runs in the fifth. Jays manager John Gibbons, not happy watching a pair of two-run leads disappear, removed Dickey from the game after 89 pitches (55 for strikes).