Raley and the Rays get to Kikuchi early to beat Jays

Perhaps it was the universe giving back, balancing out the stars, after poor Luke Raley had been sent out to the mound without a blindfold or last cigarette to pitch a couple of Hail Mary innings against the Blue Jays in Tuesday’s stomping of the Rays.

About which, Raley admitted: “Scared. It’s not my favourite place to be.” Though he did strike out Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and came off the mound walking on air before Guerrero tore a grand slam off him the next time up.

On Wednesday, in his first at-bat, Raley slugged a 91-m.p.h. slider from Yusei Kikuchi over the rightfield wall, his 10th home run on the season and the 13th surrendered by Kikuchi. Jose Siri made it 14 two hitters later, give the Rays a 3-0 lead en route to a 7-3 win that pushed Toronto deeper into fifth place in the American League East.

Kikuchi, making his 100th career MLB start, fell to 5-2 on the year after allowing five runs on eight hits in five innings, with two walks and five strikeouts. An aberrant slider was the main culprit.

“It’s a tough lineup but the slider today was leaking a little bit out over the plate,” Kikuchi said. “Those sliders were getting hit. With the batters later on, I think I was nibbling a little bit too much. I was ending up falling behind in counts. That was the downfall today.”

The Jays knew it was going to be a tough outing, up against Shane McClanahan. Tampa Bay was 9-1 in games started by the left-hander, who has enjoyed rather stunning offensive support from his teammates — 8.05 runs per nine innings pitched. The Jays managed to nick McLanahan for one run on four hits.

The Jays made a somewhat game out of it in the eighth inning. Cavan Biggio led off the inning with a bomb to deep right field, his first career pinch-hit homer. Then Nathan Lukes, who garnered his first career big-league hit Sunday, connected immediately afterward for a triple off reliever Jason Adam. Lukes scored to make it 5-3 on a George Springer groundout. The Rays responded with two more runs in the bottom of the inning. Danny Jansen was removed from the game in the sixth inning after stretching on a ground ball out. His condition was described as left groin tightness. Schneider said they were simply trying to be “proactive” about it.

A short turnaround before Thursday afternoon’s series-concluding game might impact whether Jansen plays or not. “We’ll see how the night unfolds and how tomorrow goes,” said Schneider. “Just taking it minute by minute right now.”