Kim Klement -US Presswire
The Toronto Blue Jays won just their second game of the last eight on Sunday against the Seattle Mariners to avoid the three-game sweep. In rare fashion, the Jays scored 10 runs on 15 hits, including Melky Cabrera‘s first homer as a Blue Jay. What was even rarer in the win was that the Jays only struck out once the entire game, something they haven’t done since June of 2011.
During the course of this season, the Jays have had a terrible time scoring runs, and a main reason for that is their inability to get on base. Coming into yesterday’s game, Toronto has struck out at least five times in every game this year, while striking out 13 times on four occasions — which made it even that more impressive when they only struck out once against the Mariners and scored 10 runs.
The Jays almost had their first game without a strikeout since May of 2008, when John Gibbons was in his first stint as bench boss for Toronto, but Emilio Bonifacio struck out in the bottom of the seventh. Bonifacio was also the only player not to reach base by either a hit or a walk in the blowout win.
It’s not fair to ask the Jays to only strike out once a game, but they could start turning a lot more games into wins if they were not averaging over eight strikeouts a game. Sunday’s win was a small step towards something good for the Jays, and that hasn’t been said a lot this year.
The Jays hope to continue their winning ways as they take to the road for the next two series against the Tampa Bay Rays and Boston Red Sox.
Follow Blue Jays Writer Robert Johnson on Twitter: @robert337733
