Two hits in seven innings
Gavin Williams gave up a single in the fourth and another one later. That was the whole of Toronto’s offence against him. The Cleveland right-hander struck out a career-high 13 in seven innings on Tuesday night and the Guardians beat the Blue Jays 6-1 at Progressive Field, in a game between two clubs still very much alive in the American League wild-card race.
Williams needed 97 pitches, 64 of them strikes, and faced 25 batters. He walked one. The single run charged to him was unearned and arrived without a ball leaving the infield in anger: Kazuma Okamoto singled in the fifth, moved to third when catcher Patrick Bailey threw wildly into centre on a stolen base, then scored on a wild pitch.
The seventh was the inning that made the line look the way it does. Williams struck out the side, and five of the last six men he faced went down. It was his tenth double-digit strikeout game of the season, and it came a week after a shaky outing that had raised questions about where his form was heading.
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Three two-run homers
Cleveland’s runs arrived in three identical packages. Bailey answered his own throwing error with a 3-1 drive into the left-field bleachers in the fifth, his eighth of the year, scoring Angel Martinez. Spencer Arrighetti, who fell to 7-8, wore that one.
In the seventh, Angel Genao came off the bench for fellow rookie Travis Bazzana and sent one 426 feet over the wall in left. It was his second home run since he debuted on August 5. Martinez then hit his 14th in the eighth to finish the scoring.
Hunter Gaddis and Matt Festa each threw an inning to close out a three-hitter.
Where this leaves both teams
Cleveland moved to 70-68 and is 11-4 since August 12, a run that turned a fading summer into a real September. The Guardians went into the night holding a slim lead for the third wild card and hold it a little less slimly now. Toronto slipped to 68-71 and is running out of calendar.
Dylan Cease, 9-5 with a 2.33 ERA, starts for the Blue Jays on Wednesday against Joey Cantillo.
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