°Õ³ó±ðÌýBlue Jays got one big swing Tuesday night, and it was more than enough to beat the Chicago Cubs 5-1 at the Rogers Centre. Here’s what you need to know:
José BerrÃos didn’t have his best stuff but the right-hander gutted out 5 1/3 shutout innings, walking four but limiting baseball’s second-best offence to two hits to improve to 9-4. Ernie Clement provided the pop for a season-high crowd of 43,003 with a three-run home run in the fourth inning.
“He actually missed the bunt sign on that home run, which is pretty funny,” Jays manager John Schneider said. “You’re living right when you’re doing that.â€
“If you’re going to do that, miss a sign, you’d better hit a homer,” said Clement, who went deep for the fourth time in five games. “I’m glad I put a good (swing) on it.â€
Daulton Varsho added a solo shot in the eighth inning, his 12th homer in 32 games, and Jeff Hoffman redeemed his shaky Sunday with a perfect ninth.
Flashing the leather
Nathan Lukes laid out to snare a Nico Hoerner liner with a gutsy dive in the second inning. Had the ball gotten past him, it likely would have been a game-tying triple.
The Blue Jays’ success has him taking baseball again rather than the paint job on the stadium.
Andrés Giménez and Bo Bichette played “Can you top this?” in the fourth, with Giménez making a terrific play on a Pete Crow-Armstrong grounder to begin the inning and Bichette going hard to his left to snatch a Hoerner grounder and making an incredible throw that was picked by Guerrero, in the splits, to end the inning.
Running into an out
Giménez returned after missing almost six weeks and lined a single to left in his first at-bat. Ty France, who had doubled to start the second inning, took off for the plate and was thrown out easily by Cubs left-fielder Ian Happ.
France, who came to the Jays in a deadline deal with Minnesota, ranks 545th of the 574 major-league players who have been on base this season in sprint speed at 25.0 feet per second, 20 spots ahead of Alejandro Kirk at 24.1.
Movie magic made real
Remember “Little Big League,” the 1994 movie where 12-year-old Billy Heywood inherits the Twins and manages them to a one-game playoff behind their star slugger?
The comment followed Gausman recently receiving a parking ticket on a city street after failing
Ashley Crow played Billy’s mother in the film and eight years after the movie came out gave birth to her only son, Peter Henry, now the Cubs centre-fielder. Pete Crow-Armstrong went 0-for-4, lowering his OPS to .815.
Mailbag
jeff-no found me @wilnerness on Bluesky to ask:Â “Is there a possibility of putting Vladdy at third base to get our best bats in the lineup with France at first and George Springer (when he returns) at DH?”
There’s not much that’s actually impossible as far as roster management goes, but the likelihood of Guerrero playing third base, outside an emergency situation, is about as close to nil as it gets.
Also, while France has gotten off to a terrific start with the Jays, I don’t believe he’s one of their best bats and certainly not someone the team needs to move Guerrero across the diamond in order to get him into the lineup.
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