442 feet to end a 16-game wait
Kazuma Okamoto had not hit a home run in 16 games. His 25th of the season travelled a Statcast-projected 442 feet into the fifth-inning night in St. Petersburg, off Rays reliever Steven Matz, and pushed Toronto to a 7-3 lead they never gave back.
That swing also erased Eric Hinske from the Blue Jays record book. Hinske hit 24 as a rookie in 2002 on his way to American League Rookie of the Year. Okamoto passed him with six weeks of the season still to play.
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Toronto batter the team above them
The Blue Jays won 10-5 in the opener of a three-game series against the AL-leading Rays. George Springer opened the scoring with an RBI single in the first and Jesus Sanchez followed with a run-scoring double. Alejandro Kirk homered to left-centre in the third, then drove in another with a single in the fourth. Brett Bateman scored on a wild pitch by Nick Martinez.
Martinez lasted three and two-thirds innings and gave up six runs on nine hits. Toronto had managed one run across three previous games against him this season. They matched that inside four batters.
Jose Soriano took the win, allowing three runs and nine hits over five innings with two strikeouts. Tampa Bay pulled back through a wild pitch and a two-run Taylor Walls single, then added sacrifice flies from Cedric Mullins and Richie Palacios in the eighth. Bateman’s RBI single and a Josh Smith drive over the right-field wall had already closed the Toronto scoring by then.
Thirteen wins in nineteen
The Blue Jays have taken 13 of their last 19 and are pushing hard for the third American League wild card. Beating the division leader on the road, on a night when three different hitters cleared the wall, is the kind of result that changes how a September looks.
Max Scherzer starts game two on Wednesday carrying a 1-5 record and a 6.59 ERA. Drew Rasmussen goes for Tampa Bay at 12-5 with a 2.78 ERA. Toronto will not get many easier assignments than the one they just had.
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