After facing the Baltimore Orioles and New York Yankees over their last three series, the Toronto Blue Jays began a stretch of 16 games starting tonight against below .500 opponents with a 3-1 victory over the Oakland Athletics.
It wouldn’t take the Blue Jays long to strike first in the game, as George Springer hit a lead-off home run off A’s starting pitcher Mitch Spence. The righty had a streak of surrendering two or fewer earned runs over his last three starts before tonight’s game.
Oakland would tie the game in the third from a Darell Hernáiz blast, evening the score at 1. For Hernáiz, it was the first home run of his Major League Baseball career and his third hit since returning from the injured list on August 3rd.
Toronto SP José Berríos allowed the homer, but that would be all the runs the Puerto Rican native would give up in the game.
Berríos went 7.0 innings, allowing six hits and striking out eight batters. The last time Berríos allowed one earned run was back on May 31st against the Pittsburgh Pirates, where he also pitched 7.0 innings.
The outing by Berríos is now the fourth consecutive start by a Blue Jays SP, allowing two earned runs or less. Although, Oakland’s offence isn’t nearly as deadly as the Baltimore Orioles (the team the Jays faced for three games before tonight). Oakland is 25th in MLB for runs (472) and 28th in batting average (.230).
Toronto’s offence would pick up the runs needed for Berríos to get the win. In the sixth inning, Alejandro Kirk hit into a forceout, which allowed Vladimir Guerrero Jr. to score from 3rd base.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. extended his hitting streak to 21 games, going 2-4 tonight. If Guerrero Jr. picks up a hit in tomorrow’s game, it would tie his longest MLB hitting streak for his career (22 games).
The two runs Toronto scored at the game came off Spence, who lasted 5.2 innings and allowed eight hits. The outing by Spence is now the fourth straight start for the A’s pitcher of giving up two runs or less (eight earned runs total in 22.2 innings pitched).
Spencer Horwitz drove in Toronto’s final run, blasting a ball to the fourth level of Rogers Centre, putting an exclamation point on the Jays win. Horwirz is starting to heat up again, batting .320 with eight hits over his last seven games.
Another hot Blue Jays is Ernie Clement, who collected three more hits in the ballgame. Clement has gotten three hits in a game, not once, not twice, but three times over his last 10 games.
Toronto has the chance to win back-to-back series by beating the A’s tomorrow for the first time since July 11th, when they beat the Seattle Mariners and San Francisco Giants in consecutive series.
Yariel Rodríguez will get the nod for Toronto in Saturday’s game. Rodríguez didn’t allow any runs in his last outing against the Yankees, where he was questionable pulled before getting to 5.0 innings.
