Francisco Liriano and three relievers held the A’s to two hits in a 4-2 Blue Jays victory.
Coming off a dismal road trip and with next week’s trade deadline looming, the chatter during the Blue Jays’ seven-game homestand will be as much about the goings-on off the field as what is happening on it.
But there is still baseball to be played as the clock ticks down, and the Oakland Athletics arrived for the opener of a four-game series with the same record as the home side at 4454.
The Jays struck first with a 4-2 win, holding the A’s to two hits while Rus- sell Martin launched his 10th home run of the season.
Francisco Liriano, the soon-to-be free agent whose name has been batted around as one of those on the trading block, hadn’t lasted more than two innings in his last two starts, but delivered five frames of two-hit ball and recorded the win Monday night.
“I just try not to pay attention to that,” Liriano said of the trade speculation.
“Try to concentrate on what I can control, and stuff like that I cannot control. I just came today and tried to concentrate on my outing and it worked out.”
Liriano struck out five, the most he’d had since June 14, and left with the Jays up 3-2. Joe Biagini, Ryan Tepera and closer Roberto Osuna, with his 25th save, finished with four hitless innings.
Liriano was shaky out of the gate, though, throwing 30 of his 86 pitches in the first inning. But he allowed just one run, when Marcus Semien scored on Steve Pearce’s error in left field after a Ryon Healy single.
Martin got that back in the bottom half of the first with his homer off Oakland’s Chris Smith.
The win provided the Blue Jays with at least a few hours’ respite from any off-field speculation.
Manager John Gibbons said earlier in the day that a game-by-game mantra would help filter out talk about the deadline, though he knows not getting caught up in the whispers is easier said than done.
“I’m sure they give it some thought if they’ve heard their name,” Gibbons said of the team.
“It’s never easy to move on somewhere else, especially if you’re com- fortable. You like it in a certain place.”
A homestand against two middling teams — their next opponent, the Los Angeles Angels, were 49-51 on Monday — could prove a positive diversion for the Blue Jays, though Gibbons warned records are not everything.
“Major-league teams are majorleague teams. They all have good players. You see what they’re doing (in Oakland). They’re rebuilding, but they’ve got some good young players, powerful players — typical Oakland type team. It doesn’t matter. It’s still the big leagues.”