Blue Jays tighten grip on top wild-card spot with win over Orioles

TORONTO — One night after a baseball game against the New York Yankees looked more like a boxing match, the Toronto Blue Jays welcomed the Baltimore Orioles, a team they also enjoy a contentious history with, to the Rogers Centre for the final home series of the season.

But before the game got underway, Blue Jays manager John Gibbons assured reporters that it would only be baseball— not beanball — played on the field Tuesday. After all, these games, he said, “are too important.”

Toronto’s playoff fate could be decided over the next three days. For that matter, so could Baltimore’s. Toronto entered the series in the driver’s seat, one game up on Baltimore for the top wild-card spot in the American League. A three-game sweep over the Orioles would put the Blue Jays in a good spot to ensure the Rogers Centre will host at least one post-season game for the second consecutive season, after it went 22 years without.

The Blue Jays got one step closer to securing that with a 5-1 win over the Orioles that also extended their wild-card lead to two games. The victory was also significant because it clinched the season series for the Blue Jays 10-7, meaning if the two teams were to tie for the top wild-card spot, the Blue Jays would win the tiebreaker.

"Really a good bounce-back ball game after a tough one last night," Gibbons said.

If these two teams did in fact play in the wild-card game — as it’s currently shaping out — Blue Jays starter Aaron Sanchez made a convincing case to be the one tapped for a winner-take-all, one-game playoff series with his performance Tuesday.

The 24-year-old, who paid tribute to the late Marlins starter Jose Fernandez, who died on Sunday in a boating accident, by writing the initials “JDF” on his hat, pitched six innings, allowing just one earned run, while striking out 10 batters.

“He’s been so good even if it hadn’t been a good outing, he’s got to be considered. Bottom line we got to get there first,” Gibbons said about Sanchez pitching in a wild-card game. “No doubt he’s had a tremendous year and you couldn’t go wrong with him.”

While a strong performance from Sanchez has become the norm, the chase for the post-season also takes unlikely candidates stepping up at opportune times: enter Ezequiel Carrera.

A tweaked shoulder injury suffered one night earlier during that bench-clearing brawl with the Yankees kept Devon Travis, the Blue Jays usual leadoff hitter out of the lineup. But his replacement — Carrera — filled in just fine.

Carrera had a leadoff walk in the first then scored when Josh Donaldson hit a two-run shot immediately after. Carrera then hit his own home run in the third inning, smacking a 3-1 pitch over the left field wall. In the fifth, he’d hit a RBI single before scoring later in the inning on an error. In all, he scored three of the Blue Jays’ five runs.

“I’m really happy. Put me in a leadoff spot like that and I’ll just go do my job and it worked out for me today,” Carerra said through the Blue Jays translator Josue Peley.

Teammate Sanchez said Carerra’s performance was “huge” for the team.

“That’s what it’s going to take. It’s going to take 40 men to come in here and help contribute and that’s something that we expressed in spring training and it’s unfortunate that the guys kind of went down like they did, but it gives somebody else the opportunity to step up and what a better night,” said Sanchez.

The Blue Jays will try to tighten their grip on the top wild-card spot with another win Wednesday when they send Francisco Liriano to the mound against Orioles starter Chris Tillman. With just five games left on the schedule, the Blue Jays know each win is an important one and will take them one step closer to the post-season where, of course, the games matter the most.