The Walk Off: Toronto beats Texas with another big home run
Welcome to The Walk Off, the nightly MLB recap from Big League Stew. Here we’ll look the top performers of the night, show you a must-see highlight and rundown the scoreboard. First, we start with what else? A walk-off home run.
The Toronto Blue Jays have beaten the Texas Rangers in two of the past three games played between the clubs in the Rogers Centre in Toronto with huge home runs late in those contests.
Jose Bautista’s home run and subsequent bat flip in the Blue Jays’ decisive win in the American League Division Series last year are forever part of baseball history. Justin Smoak basically beat the Rangers single-handedly on Tuesday night by hitting a solo home run in the ninth inning to tie the game off Shawn Tolleson and then blasting a walk-off, two-run home run in the 10th inning off Phil Klein.
Smoak had no home runs coming into the game and was only batting .225 with a total of four RBI this season.
While it’s just one game in a long season, it could prove to be a very meaningful win for the Blue Jays, who have been one of the biggest disappointments in baseball to this point this season. The victory Tuesday moved them 13-15 overall. Remember this was a team that was thought to be better than last year with most of the offense returning and an supposedly improved bullpen.
[The five best landing spots for Tim Lincecum]
The bullpen has been, perhaps, the biggest disappointment of all and needed Smoak’s heroics to earn its first victory of the season. Toronto relievers came into Tuesday’s game 0-9 this season.
Joe Biagini pitched the ninth and 10th innings to collect that first win for the Blue Jays out of the pen, but he started off a bit shaky. He allowed a double and single in the ninth and saw Texas shortstop Hanser Alberto thrown out at home.
TOP PERFORMERS
Francisco Lindor: Cleveland’s shortstop not only went 3-for-4 with three RBI in a 7-3 win over Detroit, he pounded a home run to right field to drive in those three runs and made a dazzling defensive play to rob Justin Upton of a base hit. Lindor is hitting .315 this season.
Jake Arrieta: The reigning National League Cy Young Award winner got off to a rough start walking the first two batters of the game before settling into his usual stellar form in Chicago’s 7-1 victory. He pitched seven innings, allowing two hits with five strikeouts to record his sixth win while lowering his ERA to 0.84.
Matt Wisler: Atlanta’s young right-hander earned his first win of the year, throwing eight strong innings allowing only one hit when Asdrubal Cabrera singled to center in the fifth inning. Wisler struck out four, walked two and hit a batter but held the Mets offense scoreless in a 3-0 victory.
Chris Carter: After belting his eighth and ninth home runs of the season and driving in three runs for Milwaukee, the 29-year-old first baseman is looking like one of the best free agent signings of the offseason. Carter’s bat helped Junior Guerra earn his first win in the major leagues in his first start as the Brewers beat the Angels 5-4.
Mark Trumbo: The Orioles’ outfielder continued mashing the baseball with two no-doubters off New York Yankees starter Luis Severino in Baltimore’s 4-1 victory. Trumbo now has eight home runs, 22 RBI and a .337 batting average in his first 98 at-bats of the season.
[Everything the Yankees are doing is awful]
MUST-SEE HIGHLIGHT
It’s not often you see a home run to the very top of a baseball stadium or completely out of it, but it happened Tuesday in Houston. George Springer hit his second home run of the week by hammering a fourth-inning pitch from Minnesota’s Tommy Milone onto the train tracks atop the stadium wall in left field at Minute Maid Park. It was Springer’s sixth home run of the season and drove in two runs in the Astros’ 6-4 win over the Twins.
THE REST OF THE SCOREBOARD
Royals 7, Nationals 6: Jonathan Papelbon took the mound with a two-run lead for Washington in the ninth inning but blew the save. Mike Moustakas drove in two runs with a single to center to tie the game and Lorenzo Cain won it with a single to center to drive in Moustakas.
Phillies 1, Cardinals 0: Aaron Nola extended his string of scoreless innings to 20 with a dominating seven-inning, two-hit performance. Nola had a disastrous outing in mid-April against Washington when he gave up seven earned runs but has allowed only one run to cross the plate since and zero in his past two starts.
White Sox 4, Red Sox 1: Jose Quintana allowed one run on four hits and struck out five to lead Chicago to the best record in the American League at 19-8. Jose Abreu hit a double and a triple and knocked in three.
Giants 3, Reds 1: Jeff Samardzija pitched eight innings, giving up one run on just three hits while striking out nine Cincinnati batters. San Francisco pushed across the winning runs in the eighth inning with an infield single from Kleby Tomlinson and a single to right by Gregor Bianco.
Dodgers 10, Rays 5: Howie Kendrick went 4-for-5 and Yasiel Puig was one of three Dodgers with a home run. Puig drove in three and Scott Kazmir recorded nine strikeouts to earn his secong victory of the season.
Marlins 7, Diamondbacks 4: Christian Yelich and Ichiro Suzuki each drove in a pair of runs and Justin Nicolino pitched six innings without recording a strikeout to notch his second win of the season.
Mariners 8, A’s 2: Hisashi Iwakuma earned his first win of the year with seven determined innings and three of his Seattle teammates pounded home runs. Iwakuma allowed just one run and four hits to help the Mariners win for the 10th time in the past 13 games.
Padres 6, Rockies 3: Matt Kemp and Brett Wallace hit back-to-back home runs in the fourth inning and Wallace was a part of the three-run sixth inning when he drove in another run to help starter Andrew Cashner recover from a shaky start to win for the second time in 2016. The Rockies scored their runs in the first two innings and were shut down the rest of the way.
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Kyle Ringo is a contributing writer to Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @KyleRingo
