Boston Red Sox's J.D. Martinez reacts after hitting a three run home run during the fifth inning against the Toronto Blue Jays in Toronto, on April 26, 2018.Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press
To suggest Chris Sale has been dominant against the Toronto Blue Jays at Rogers Centre over his career would be a disservice to the word.
Overpowering perhaps or even deadly. Or how about sick, to use the vernacular favoured by the younger set these days.
So it was rather a startling turn of events that unfolded at the closed big top on Thursday night to see the Boston Red Sox lefty ace getting cuffed around by the Blue Jays bats for once.
But even with Sale not at full throttle the Red Sox (19-5) proved too much to handle, storming back to record a 5-4 victory over the Blue Jays (14-10) to earn a 2-1 series victory for the club with the best record in the American League.
The key blow was delivered by J.D. Martinez, who powered his fifth home run off Toronto starter Marco Estrada, a three-run shot that moved the Red Sox in front 5-3 in the top of the fifth inning.
Jays manager John Gibbons was asked, given the way his team got to Sale early, if he felt the game represented a lost opportunity to put one in the win column.
“But the good ones, when they smell a lead, whether they’re on or off whatever that particular night, they close them out or get as deep as they can,” he said. “That’s what separates those guys.
“I like the way we battled. We had some chances and the big home run definitely hurt. That’s why they pay some of those guys all that money, for a reason.”
It has been a decent start for the Blue Jays but with one worrisome trend early: Of their 14 wins, only five have been against teams with winning records.
Sale is 6-foot-6 and is listed at just 180 pounds. His jersey falls limply from his skinny frame like it is still hanging from a clothes rack in a Kmart.
But don’t be fooled by the underwhelming physical appearance. The 29-year-old can still bring it with the best as the Blue Jays can well attest.
Sale has almost been infallible pitching at Rogers Centre, with a 0.96 earned-run average in seven previous appearances before Thursday with a .153 opponent’s batting average. Those represent the lowest marks in the ballpark’s history for pitchers with at least five starts at Rogers Centre.
Sale came into the series finale having not allowed a run in his last 23 innings pitched at Toronto, including all three starts last year with the Red Sox.
So the Blue Jays could be excused for feeling a bit giddy after knocking Sale around early for four hits, including home runs by Devon Travis in the second and Justin Smoke in the third that helped stake Toronto to a 3-1 lead.
For Travis, it was just his eighth hit in 55 at-bats this season for the second baseman, and his first home run that soared into the second deck in left field.
Travis displayed signs he is coming around with the bat. He tripled in the seventh inning and finished 2-for-4 at the plate.
With the tough lefty on the mound, Gibbons elected to give the start in right field to Randal Grichuk, he of the .085 batting average heading into the game. That’s the lowest average of any player in the majors with at least 40 at-bats.
Gibbons was playing a hunch that Grichuk’s 3-for-4 lifetime mark against Sale, including a home run and a double, might help lead him out of his batting fog.
It didn’t, with Grichuk going 0-for-4, lowering his average to an even more unsightly .079.
Uncharacteristically for the Blue Jays, they found some early success against Sale, cruising to a 1-0 lead in the first inning after loading the bases.
Kevin Pillar then lifted a deep fly to right that scored the tagging Teoscar Hernandez for a quick Toronto lead.
In the second inning, Estrada started to warm, striking out the side. His second punch out was to Eduardo Nunez and he represented the 1000th strikeout victim of Estrada’s career.
The Blue Jays tagged on another run in the second inning when Travis crunched his homer to make it 2-0.
Boston cut the lead to 2-1 in the third on an RBI double by Andrew Benintendi but Toronto responded in the bottom of the frame when Smoke lifted his third home run of the year to left-centre, restoring Toronto’s two-run advantage.
Then the high-octane Red Sox offence got busy, scoring a run off a sacrifice fly in the fourth inning before tagging on three more on Estrada in the fifth on Martinez’s three-run effort that moved them out in front 5-3.
Estrada left the game after five, having given up five runs off eight hits while striking out five.
Sale departed after six, the three Toronto runs he allowed off four hits – the two home runs his biggest blemishes.
Travis stroked his triple with one out in the seventh off Boston reliever Carson Smith and would come in to score on pinch-hit ground-out by Kendrys Morales to cut the Boston led to 5-4.
The Blue Jays will shift focus to the Texas Rangers, who arrive in Toronto on Friday to begin a three-game weekend set.