Toronto Blue Jays relief pitcher Jay Jackson (35) throws a pitch against the Tampa Bay Rays during the eighth inning at Rogers Centre on Sept. 29, 2023.Nick Turchiaro/Reuters
The Toronto Blue Jays crushed the ball all over the park in a dominant 11-4 win over the Tampa Bay Rays on Friday night, a team they may see again in the playoffs in a few days.
It was a giant step closer to a playoff berth, but the Jays are still sitting just shy of clinching. Their celebration remains on hold.
Toronto’s magic number to clinch a post-season spot is down to one. They need a win in one of their final two games, or to see the Seattle Mariners lose one to the Texas Rangers.
After Friday’s win, the Jays and their fans were left watching the out-of-town scoreboard until the late games ended. Had Seattle lost to Texas, that would have pushed Toronto in. But Seattle won, keeping the American League wildcard race tight in the final weekend of the regular season. The Jays went home to bed, preparing to play a meaningful game on Saturday.
Toronto (89-71) sits in the second of three AL wildcard spots, with two games left – both at home versus the Rays (97-63), who have already clinched the first AL wildcard spot.
For the second night in the row, the Jays scored a barrage of runs Friday, following a lineup shuffle made before they went out and beat up the New York Yankees 6-0 on Thursday – Bo Bichette into the cleanup spot, Brandon Belt into the two-hole and Matt Chapman down to the No. 8 spot.
The Jays scored 11 runs on 16 hits against Tampa before a crowd of 42,394 on Friday. Alejandro Kirk provided Toronto’s first hit of the night, when he crushed a solo homer into right field in the second inning.
It was Kirk who helped add to the score in the third too, when he came to the plate with bases loaded and split the infielders with a ground ball, a single that scored two runners. The Jays added another on a sacrifice fly by Kevin Kiermaier.
Brandon Belt made it five when he rocked his second homer in as many nights.
A Cavan Biggio line drive into centre field scored a couple of runners, aided by a sloppy Rays fielding error, letting it trickle past him to the wall.
Then Matt Chapman went deep for the second straight day too, making it 8-0.
This bat-happy Jays team looked nothing like the squad who had languished offensively versus the Yankees just two days earlier.
“It feels great when everybody is hitting,” Kirk said through his interpreter Hector Lebron.
Meanwhile Yusei Kikuchi tossed an easy scoreless five innings, before Yandy Diaz took one of his pitches over the leftfield wall in the sixth to give Tampa two runs. After allowing a pair of doubles that inning too, the Jays took Kikuchi out. They started him a day earlier on Friday – in place of Hyun Jin Ryu – so Kikuchi could be rested in time to possibly pitch in the playoffs.
“Looking back from where he was last year to where he is right now, it’s just night and day,” said Schneider of the much-improved Kikuchi. “You can’t say enough about how consistent he’s been. Today was just kind of another example of him making big pitches.”
Toronto’s lefty from Japan tied his career-high by making his 32nd start of the season on Friday. He allowed five hits, three earned runs and struck out four.
The Rays made a brief push. They scored two more on a single by promising rookie Junior Caminero, morphing a blowout into a tighter 8-4 game.
But the Jays answered by scoring a bunch more: a single by Biggio brought in two runs and a Bichette double brought in one more – capping off a four-hit night for the All-Star shortstop.
“Everyone talks about our pitching and our defense,” said Schneider. “But this lineup has scored some runs, so, hopefully we can kind of continue to roll.”
So the Jays and Rays will face off in two more matinees this weekend in Toronto. The Jays hope they’ll get to celebrated on Saturday.
The post-season starts Tuesday. The higher seeded teams get to host all games in the best-of-three wildcard round.
Whether the 2023 Blue Jays can produce a better October than last year’s team did, is still to be determined.