Another one-andyou’re-done inning

Marco Estrada has this signature thing, a quirk maybe, where he brings his hands to his mug in the start position and peers in over top the glove before beginning his delivery. It looks like he’s praying. And that might also describe how Blue Jays starters have been taking the mound — on a wing and a prayer and a too-rapid segue to the bullpen.

Manager John Gibbons has just been sending up hosannas for a few quality starts strung together and a chance for the relief cadre to catch their breath because they’ve been doing all the heavy lifting, leading the American League with 1381⁄ 3 innings — and a 2.73 ERA — before Jake Petricka, Aaron Loup, Seung-hwan Oh and Ryan Tepera kicked in their three frames of three-hit ball against Boston in Saturday’s cocktail encounter.

At least that specific skipper’s Ave Maria was answered in Toronto’s 5-2 loss: a six-inning contribution by Estrada, in a month when only three starts have gone that distance. In Toronto’s last 10 games, only twice has a starter gone six: Estrada and Estrada.

“Actually I thought he was pretty solid, he battled pretty good,” said Gibbons. “Overall, he gave us six innings. We just couldn’t do a whole lot. Yeah, we’ll take that any day.”

Estrada outlasted opposing moundsman David Price, the bestower of the plush cobalt blue robes to his thenteammates two years ago. Estrada remains caressingly attached to his, still swanning around the clubhouse in it.

Price arrived at the Rogers Centre lugging a 5.11 ERA and three straight losses, and had been scratched from his prior scheduled start with a slight case of carpal tunnel syndrome.

DIMANNO continued on S4

Price insists that was no-wayno-how caused by his obsession with the multi-player online combat survival video game that is all the rage in sports dressing rooms.

Price amassed 93 pitches in 51⁄ 3 innings, not so dominating despite a half-dozen strikeouts or in command of his control, with three walks. But he was good enough to cop the win and lower his ERA to 4.89. Not the Price who was a prince of mastery in his molten summer as a Jay three years back.

Estrada, meanwhile, is getting strafed by the long ball. He surrendered his 10th jack of the season yesterday in a crooked third inning that ultimately made the only difference the Red Sox needed: back-to-back doubles by Mookie Betts and Andrew Benitendi, Boston up 1-0, followed immediately by a Henley Ramirez sluggo into the Toronto pen on an 0-1 count, feasting on a fastball with hardly a trace of movement on it. Bang-bang- bang. “I made a decent pitch to Betts and he kind of hooked it down the line,” a frustrated Estrada said. “I didn’t think he hit it that well but … got a double out of it.”

Estrada continued his third inning play-by-play review: “Next pitch wasn’t so great — Benintendi … hit a gapper. Then I thought I made a good pitch to Ramirez. I wanted to go up and in on him. Could have got it in a little bit more. After he hit it, I didn’t think it was going to go out but it did.

“But other than that, I threw the ball pretty well today. I thought I made a lot of solid pitches, a few weak hits, a couple of good ones.” One bad — as in godawful — inning has been rather a motif for the Toronto starters, an ailment that has latterly infected J.A. Happ too and he’d been their most reliable man on the hill.

“I’m not sure about the other guys but for me, for sure,” said Estrada, who got through the batting order three times, hallelujah. “It’s usually a home run that just kind of kills everything for me. Things are usually going OK and the next thing I know I get two guys on and the next guy hits a ball well and it just gets out. It kind of ruins everything.

“Today, same thing. If it wasn’t for that homer, who knows? I wish I could have given the team a better chance to win today but still got through six.”

A chance. It’s all Gibbons had been pleading for.

Unlike the previous evening, a walk-off extra innings win on Luke Maile’s second homer of the night, the Jays drew scant blood off Boston’s bullpen, held to two hits after Price’s departure, including Justin Smoak cranking his fifth home run leading off the sixth. Earlier, in the fourth, Alford recorded the first RBI of his major-league career, a single lined through the middle that scored Kevin Pillar.

And, entertainingly, Russell Martin made his second start of the season at third base, with Josh Donaldson at DH and a struggling Kendrys Morales on the bench.

Martin provided some hotcorner thrills — first setting up in foul territory, straddling the line to field a ball deep beyond the base, and throwing a strike some 130 feet right into the chest of Smoak to get Betts; then, practically executing a jete-cabriolet tag on Christian Vazquez on a 2-5 caught-stealing. Both athletic and balletic. “I’ve spent a lot of time on third base in my life,” said Martin, Toronto’s backbone catcher. “Not at the majorleague level but I was kind of bred as a kid to be an infielder. It’s almost like riding a bike. All the skills that you learn, you don’t really forget. It’s just fun to have an opportunity to showcase that.”

Oh yeah, Martin was having fun.

“Catching, you’re always thinking and strategizing. At third base, you’re just being reactionary and playing the game.”

Also, mercy, displaying that strong throwing arm, developed behind the plate, but without the fancy-prancy footwork often required to throw out a would-be basestealer, when he is reacting from the squat.

“At third base you get a good grip, you can really let it go. Don’t get to do that too often from behind the plate. But it’s fun to show it off.”