Bringing the Jays back
Donaldson’s bat powers another decisive rally
The Blue Jays and manager John Gibbons must have thought they had Saturday’s game under control after five innings. But what seemed like a laugher after a six-run rally at the Rogers Centre turned into a nail-biting 10-9 Jays victory over the Twins, one that kept the Jays hanging on the outside of the American League wild-card race.
This was truly a two-act play, opening as a breezy, feel-good story about winning, starring Josh Donaldson and friends but finishing with the potential of a Greek tragedy with closer Roberto Osuna as the unlucky hero.
Donaldson showed great dramatic range in his five at-bats and additional flair on the bases. He laid down a surprise bunt with runners on first and second to load the bases in the fourth inning. In the sixth, he broke a 2-2 tie with a no-doubt home run to left, leading to a six-run Jays outburst and a six-run lead.
“It was awesome,” Donaldson said of the outburst. “I felt like we’ve been swinging the bats pretty well but we just haven’t been able to get those runs across like we needed to. Today was a nice relief.
“We got some nice situational hitting down today too and were able to drive some runs in. That was good.”
The Bringer of Rain has been a bringer of leads over three seasons in Toronto. Of Donaldson’s 101 home runs with the Jays, 53 have given the team the lead, including this one against Twins starter Dillon Gee. Another five of his roundtrippers have tied the game, meaning 57.4 per cent of his homers have been game-changers.
“I feel like, in those situations, maybe I’m able to focus a little bit better, get a better game plan,” Donaldson shrugged, attempting to explain his success. “I don’t have the answer for it because, if I did, I would do it all the time.”
After Twins manager Paul Molitor changed pitchers following Donaldson’s homer, his 12th in 24 games, the Jays added four more runs in the fifth. Kevin Pillar scorched a bases-loaded single to left.
Ryan Goins hit a deep sacrifice fly to centre for his 50th run batted in of the season and catcher Raffy Lopez looped a two-run single to centre.
Then, after the Twins had narrowed the advantage to one run via a Max Kepler grand slam off Ryan Tepera in the eighth, Donaldson stepped up again, looping a hustling double down the right-field line, then scoring alertly from third on a short wild pitch just out of the dirt to the right of the plate. That boosted the lead back to three. And the Jays needed them all.
“I take pride in all areas of my game: defence, baserunning, hitting,” Donaldson said. “You have the opportunity to affect the game in a positive manner with a lot of different facets . . . I try to do that to the best of my ability. For the most part, I feel I do a pretty good job.”
The two-run eighth seemed to nullify an unusual contra-performance by the Jays’ bullpen earlier in the eighth inning. Tepera had hit Byron Buxton with a pitch to load the bases, then allowed the Kepler grand slam.
Osuna had not been expecting to be used, given the big early lead, but he came on in the ninth with a three-run advantage and turned it into a very nervy 34th save. With one Twin on and nobody out, a hard grounder blew between the legs of the reliable Justin Smoak at first base and many of the 45,591 fans likely had deja-blew visions of Osuna at Wrigley Field last Sunday.
After a Brian Dozier single left runners on the corners, Osuna changed the tragic plotline, making an athletic, off-balance stab on a hard Joe Mauer grounder up the middle and starting a huge doubleplay. Lopez had been a huge part of the Windy City meltdown a week earlier, allowing two runners to reach after strikeouts on pitches that got away. He explained the Jays’ lack of panic.
“(Osuna) made a great play, especially being a little bit off balance with the mound,” Lopez said. “Outside people may think that, ‘Oh, here we go again,’ but as a ballplayer you have to have a short memory. It’s another game. This is the second time he’s closed out a game since then with me catching. You have to have a short memory . . . you just move on.”
The win went to Marco Estrada (6-8). Despite the fact that it has not been the vintage Estrada of recent years, one thing you can never deny about the veteran right-hander is that he takes the ball every time it’s handed to him and gives you everything he’s got. Facing the pesky Twins in his 27th start of the season, Estrada worked six innings, allowing three runs on five hits with a walk and three strikeouts. But his is a season in which he always seems to have one struggling inning. On this day it was the fifth, when he allowed a game-tying two-run blast to Eduardo Escobar.
“I thought I made a lot of good pitches,” Estrada said. “It’s a tough lineup. The pitch got away from me, the home run. I got a little lazy with it and I didn’t really follow through with it. The pitch kind of stayed over the plate and he hit it out, but other than that I thought I threw the ball pretty well today.”
Estrada has managed five quality starts over his past seven outings, carving out a 3.83 ERA over 421⁄
3 innings, allowing 18 earned runs. The Jays are 4-3 in those starts. In nine starts prior to July 26, he had made just one quality start.