The Blue Jays beat Rays 4-1 and hit two home runs

Toronto – The Toronto Blue Jays beat the Tampa Bay Rays 4-1 in the opening round of a five-game series at Rogers Center on Thursday night, with Teoscar Hernandez and Santiago Espinal hitting home runs.

Yusei Kikuchi made his first quality start in more than a month, and Toronto won his third victory in four games, and Adam Simver won a save.

Toronto (43-33) ranked second with Boston in the American League East. Tampa Bay is behind the Blue Jays and the idle Red Sox by 2 1/2 games. The Red Sox occupy the top two AL wildcards.

Isaac Paredes hit a solo shot of Rays (40-35). Raise hit three times in a row. Toronto beat Tampa Bay 9-5.

Kikuchi (3-4) allowed one earned run, four hits, and walking. He had eight strikeouts in his first win since May 16th.

Tampa Bay opener Matt Wisler worked on a scoreless frame before handing the ball to Ryan Yarbrough, who had just been recalled from Triple A Durham. Yarbro gave up infield hits second to Alejandro Kirk before Hernandez hit his eighth home run this year.

Kikuchi didn’t allow a hit until Yandy Diaz hit a two-out single in the third inning. He remained stuck when Wander Franco attacked.

Tampa Bay halved the lead fourth when Paredes curled a solo shot just inside the left-wing foul screen. Season 11 home runs.

Kikuchi struck out Taylor Walls in the 5th inning with the 400th strikeout. Left-handed players gave up consecutive singles on sixth base, but third baseman Matt Chapman made two strong defensive plays to mitigate the threat.

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Chapman started a double play of 5-3, short-hopped Landia Rosarena’s grounder, and then shot a strong shot at first base, scoring 3 outs.

In the 7th inning, relief pitcher Trent Thornton gave up the single to Vidal Brujan, who took second and third place with a slow error from rookie catcher Gabriel Moreno.

Chapman’s defense helped again when he chased Francisco Mejia’s flyball and retired his side in the foul territory.

Lourdes Gurriel Jr. floated a single in the right fielder in the lower half of the frame before Espinal hit his sixth home run this year.

Yarbro (0-4) allowed 4 earned runs, 8 hits and a walk of 5 1/3 innings or more.

David Phelps threw eight times at Toronto and Simver got his fourth save. The number of attendees announced was 22,987, and it took 2 hours and 55 minutes to play the game.

High five

This is the first time the Blue Jays have played a five-game series at Rogers Center.

Toronto has played at least five game series in the history of the franchise for the twelfth time, and for such a series to be played at home for the fourth time (the others were exhibitions in 1977, 1979 and 1980). It was done at the stadium).

Additional games have been added to this week’s series, including the one originally scheduled for April 4th.

Movement of the list

Raise put pitchers Brooks Raley and Ryan Thompson on the restricted list before the match. Right-handed Javy Guerra and Phoenix Sanders have been added to the Triple A Durham active roster.

Tampa Bay has also added left-handed Jeffrey Springs to the Family Health Emergency List.

Potential pitcher

Right-handed people will be square on Friday night. Jose Berríos (5-4, ERA 5.86) will face Corey Kluber (3-4, 3.45) in Tampa Bay.

Neither team has confirmed Saturday’s doubleheader or Sunday afternoon’s Series Finale starter.

Tampa Bay’s Shane McClanahan (8-3, 1.77) and Toronto’s Kevin Gausman (6-6, 2.93) are likely to pitch on Saturday, but it’s unclear whether they will start in the afternoon or evening.

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This report by Canadian Press was first published on June 30, 2022.

Follow @GregoryStrongCP on Twitter.