Blue Jays Beat Rays: Osuna Earns 32nd Save after Strange Delays
The Toronto Blue Jays were involved in a pitcher’s duel against the Tampa Bay Rays coming out on the right side of a tight 3-2 game.
Scoreless until the bottom of the sixth, the Blue Jays broke through Tampa’s defence with a double by Devon Travis and a two-run home run by Jose Bautista. Unfortunately, the Rays quickly evened the score back up at 2-2 with the first two batters in the seventh; the Rays having been kept scoreless by Liriano up to that point.
Ezequiel Carrera had his first pinch-hit base hit of the season, and it was a big one. Carerra hit a first-pitch home run coming in off the bench in the eighth inning for Darwin Barney and gave the Blue Jays back the lead in the bottom of the eighth. This was the first pinch-hit home run for the Jays since Carrera hit one in July of the 2015 season.
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Francisco Liriano pitched a gem, retiring sixteen straight after giving up a lead-off single in the first inning. Liriano allowed only two runs on three hits. Those two runs, back to back homers, came in the seventh chasing the starter out of the game. Liriano gave up one walk and struck out six keeping his pitch count low, and left the game after throwing only 72 pitches.
Joaquin Benoit had a scoreless inning of relief in the seventh and Jason Grilli had a scoreless inning of relief in the eighth allowing the Blue Jays batters to come back in the bottom of the eighth.
Roberto Osuna earned the save; however, his celebrations were twice delayed. His celebrations were put on hold momentarily when he thought he had the strikeout on Steven Souza Jr. The air horn went off to end the game, the outfield came in, and he turned to the sky in celebration only to find out it was a foul tip off Russell Martin’s glove.
Regrouping, Osuna got Souza Jr to fly out to Kevin PIllar in centre field to earn his save. Once again, his celebrations were put on hold when the benches cleared in what looked to be an end of game fight between the two teams as Souza Jr. was very upset over something. After Martin and Souza Jr. talked things over, Osuna was finally able to celebrate the win with the rest of his team. No punches were thrown, and there seemed to be no apparent reason for the end of game bench clearing.
The Jays go for the win against Tampa when Marcus Stroman (4.55 ERA) faces off against Drew Smyly (5.05 ERA) on Tuesday, September 13th at 7:07 ET in Toronto.
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