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| Photo courtesy of Canadian Press |
Another day,
another game and another blow out. It’s starting to become routine with the
Toronto Blue Jays. On days they don’t score a lot of runs, we’re going to
wonder if there’s something wrong with the bats. Sunday afternoon, it was a 9-2
victory over the Detroit Tigers to sweep the weekend series. The unfortunate
thing is that the Yankees swept the Atlanta Braves this weekend as well, so the
gap between the two teams is still the game and a half that it was after Thursday’s
games.
And while they couldn’t put any
distance between themselves and the Yanks this weekend, the gap between the
Jays and the Minnesota Twins, the team that leads those on the outside looking
in, is now at seven. Even though there are still five weeks to play, the Jays’
Magic Number to clinch a playoff spot is 26. I know it’s silly to even think
about Magic Numbers this early but considering we haven’t done so with this
club in 23 years, I couldn’t resist.
On Sunday, it was another strong
pitching performance and a quartet of home runs that took care of the Tigers.
Mark Buehrle pitched six innings for the victory, his fourteenth of the year,
allowing two runs, only one of them earned, while striking out two Detroit
batters. In relief, Mark Lowe, Aaron Sanchez and Bo Schultz pitched scoreless
ball for the last three innings, allowing only two hits in total.
Josh Donaldson opened the
scoring for Toronto with a solo home run in the bottom of the first inning, his
36th of the season. Donaldson would another RBI later in the day to
push his season total to 106. Edwin Encarnacion also went deep in the first,
his 30th, and extended his hitting streak to 25 games, the fourth
longest in Blue Jays history. He now only trails John Olerud (1993) and Shannon
Stewart (1999) at 26, and Shawn Green (1999) at 28 straight games.
Kevin Pillar hit the third home
run of the day (his 9th) with a man on to make the score 4-0. Pillar
also narrowly missed an amazing Devon White-type play when he leaped up
against the fence in the sixth inning, snatched the ball, but had it jar loose
from his glove when he hit the turf.
Russell Martin hit his 17th
of the season, a two-run shot, to make the score 6-0 in the fourth inning. The
Jays added their final three runs of the day in the eighth inning, high-lighted
by a two-run double by Ryan Goins.
On Monday the Cleveland Indians
come to town for a three-game stint while the Yankees head to Boston to take on
the Red Sox, also for three games.
Toronto is 21-5 in the month of
August and have a chance, with one game left in the month, to win 22 games in
one month for the first time in franchise history.
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