You kind of got the sense that this was not going to be Jaime Garcia’s night early in the second inning after he surrendered a double to Kurt Suzuki and then walked two straight batters to load the bases for the Atlanta Braves.
The Toronto Blue Jays starter then fell behind 2-0 to Johan Camargo, Atlanta’s No. 9 hitter, before serving up a big, fat, juicy fastball that sliced the middle of the plate in a runless game.
And Camargo did what most major-league hitters will do under similar circumstances – he swung for the rooftops and sent a towering drive to left field, a grand slam that gave the Braves a big lead.
The final score was 11-4 for Atlanta (43-29) at Rogers Centre on Tuesday night, bringing to a halt Toronto’s (33-39) modest three-game win streak while the Braves won for the third straight outing to maintain their grip on first place in the National League East.
“That’s baseball,” said Toronto first baseman Justin Smoak, who accounted for two of Toronto’s eight hits in the contest. “We’re playing a good team and they kept putting runs on the board and we were right there with them for a while and kind of went south there towards the end.”
Camango wound up driving in five of the Atlanta runs after enjoying a 4-for-5 evening at the plate, while Charlie Culberson also homered off Garcia, who was gone after three innings, on the hook for five of the Braves runs.
Mike Soroka, the rookie from Calgary, got the start in the first of two games in the inter-league set, and certainly benefited from Atlanta’s solid offensive showing.
Soroka lasted 4⅔ innings and was nicked for four runs off eight hits, including six Toronto doubles, and didn’t hang around long enough to qualify for the win.