Marco Estrada pitches against the Oakland Athletics on Friday.Dan Hamilton/USA TODAY Sports via Reuters
There was a rare sighting at Rogers Centre on Friday night – an actual decent outing by a Toronto Blue Jays starter.
Marco Estrada pitched into the seventh inning, just the seventh time a Toronto starter has gone that deep through 45 games this season.
Alas for the Blue Jays, their bats were not up for the occasion as the A’s scored a couple of late runs for a 3-1 victory for their second successive victory in the four-game set.
The free-falling Blue Jays (22-23) have lost five of their past six to fall under .500 for the first time since opening week. Oakland improved to 23-22.
Estrada scattered seven hits in his start with no walks and six strikeouts. One of those hits was a solo home run shot by Dustin Fowler in the third inning, which provided Oakland a 1-0 lead.
Toronto knotted the score in the fifth when Gio Urshela drove in Luke Maile from second with a single.
Estrada faltered in the seventh, where Oakland touched him up for back-to-back-to-back two-out doubles by Chad Pinder, Fowler and Josh Phegley, which tagged on two more runs and proved the difference in the game.
For the second straight game, the A’s lost their starting pitcher early on with an injury but still came away with a victory.
Friday’s starter, Brett Anderson, suffered a left shoulder strain throwing his warmup pitches before Toronto’s second-inning at-bats and had to leave the game. But the Oakland pitchers combined to strike out 15 batters.
The Blue Jays injury problems also continue to mount.
Before the game the team announced that struggling starter Jaime Garcia has been placed on the 10-day disabled list with left shoulder inflammation. Deck McGuire was summoned from Triple-A Buffalo to fill his roster spot.