{"id":61958,"date":"2021-10-13T03:48:53","date_gmt":"2021-10-13T03:48:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/yorunoteiou.com\/?p=61958"},"modified":"2021-10-13T03:48:53","modified_gmt":"2021-10-13T03:48:53","slug":"jays-hope-to-gain-wild-card-ground-against-twins-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/yorunoteiou.com\/?p=61958","title":{"rendered":"Jays hope to gain wild-card ground against Twins"},"content":{"rendered":"

Still in the thick of the American League wild-card race, the Toronto Blue Jays open their final road series of the season on Thursday night against the Minnesota Twins in Minneapolis.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Left-hander Steven Matz (13-7, 3.84 ERA) will start the opener of the four-game set for Toronto, going against veteran right-hander Michael Pineda (7-8, 3.74).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The Blue Jays took two of three games from the Twins last weekend in Toronto.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Matz, who is 1-0 with a 3.72 ERA in two career starts against Minnesota, picked up the victory in a 6-2 decision on Saturday afternoon after Pineda, who is 3-5 with a 4.29 ERA in 15 career starts against the Blue Jays, pitched Minnesota to a 7-3 win in the Friday night series opener.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Toronto (85-67) began the road trip by dropping two of three at AL East leader Tampa Bay (94-59).<\/p>\n

The Jays fell 7-1 in a Wednesday afternoon game that saw the benches clear when Blue Jays reliever Ryan Borucki<\/a> nailed Rays outfielder Kevin Kiermaier in the back with an eighth-inning pitch.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Kiermaier had picked up a scouting card that had fallen out of the wristband of Toronto catcher Alejandro Kirk during a play at the plate in Monday’s contest and took it with him into Tampa Bay’s dugout, drawing the ire of the Blue Jays.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Borucki said the ball “slipped out of his hand” and that hitting Kiermaier was “accidental” but umpire Joe West, who immediately ejected Borucki, and Kiermaier saw it differently.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

During a postgame celebration observing the Rays clinching a postseason spot, Kiermaier called Borucki’s pitch intentional and “a weak move” and said he would like to catch up to the Blue Jays in October.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

“I hope we play those guys, I really do,” Kiermaier said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

“I hope we play them.”<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The Blue Jays, who fell a half-game behind the New York Yankees for the second wild-card spot, would seem to have the edge in the scheduling department to sneak into the playoffs.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

After the four games in Minnesota, Toronto returns home for a three-game showdown with the Yankees.<\/p>\n

The Blue Jays then finish the season with three games against the American League’s worst team, the Baltimore Orioles.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

New York, meanwhile, must go on the road this weekend for three games against the Boston Red Sox (88-65), who have won seven in a row and hold a two-game lead for the top wild-card spot.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The Yankees finish the regular season with three home games against Tampa Bay.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

“This is the first series we’ve lost (in a while),” Blue Jays manager Charlie Montoyo said following the Wednesday defeat. “We’d won seven in a row. We are playing good baseball. Today our pitching struggled a little bit and we were playing from behind, but we have been playing good baseball. They know what is going on.”<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Minnesota completed a two-game series sweep of the host Chicago Cubs with a 5-4 victory Wednesday night.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Twins rookie right-hander Joe Ryan struck out a career-high 11 over five innings, fanning each of the last seven batters he faced.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Ryan, who allowed two runs on three hits and walked one while throwing 86 pitches, link dewadominoqq<\/a> became the first pitcher in Senators\/Twins history to strike out 11 or more batters in five or fewer innings.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

“Joe was absolutely dialed in,” Minnesota manager Rocco Baldelli said.<\/p>\n

“He attacked them. He attacked them in the strike zone and he attacked them with pitches that they had trouble with. … It was just a wonderful start.”<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Ryan’s performance overshadowed a big offensive night by right fielder Max Kepler, who went 3-for-4 with two home runs, a double, three runs and three RBIs.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

–Field Level Media<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Still in the thick of the American League wild-card race, the Toronto Blue Jays open t\u2026","protected":false},"author":8042,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2291],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/yorunoteiou.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61958"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/yorunoteiou.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/yorunoteiou.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/yorunoteiou.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8042"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/yorunoteiou.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61958"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/yorunoteiou.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61959,"href":"http:\/\/yorunoteiou.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61958\/revisions\/61959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/yorunoteiou.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/yorunoteiou.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/yorunoteiou.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}