On Monday night at Rogers Centre, the Boston Red Sox defeated the Toronto Blue Jays 7-3 thanks to the efforts of a couple of Canadians.
The Red Sox stopped the Blue Jays from getting back to.500 with two solo home runs from Tyler O’Neill and seven strong innings from starting pitcher Nick Pivetta.
“I suppose you could say I wanted to show up in front of the home crowd,” O’Neill remarked. There are a lot of maple leaves on the ground right now, which is interesting to observe. This morning, I made sure to get my Tim Hortons.
Rafael Devers and Ceddanne Rafaela both hit home runs off Yusei Kikuchi, the Toronto starter who was gone after just four innings.
Through an interpreter, Kikuchi stated, “There were obviously some pitches that I didn’t locate too well.” However, I believe they also took a sensible tack.
In the first game of their three-game series, American League East division rivals Boston outscored Toronto 11–10. The Blue Jays were led by single home runs from Justin Turner and Davis Schneider.
Pivetta (4–4), a native of Victoria, struck out four and gave up nine hits, three earned runs, and a walk.
Boston manager Alex Cora stated, “We had the right guy on the mound for the game tonight because of who he is and his resilience.”
O’Neill, a native of Burnaby, British Columbia, and Devers are tied for the club lead this season with 14 home runs each.
“On pitches that were kind of in the middle, they put good swings,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider said.
Toronto dropped to 35-37 while Boston (38-35) won for the sixth time in eight games.
After striking out the first two batters he faced, Kikuchi (4-6) allowed O’Neill and Devers to score consecutive home runs.
After Turner walked and George Springer hit a broken-bat flare that landed in shallow right field, Toronto cut the lead in half in the second inning.
Turner quickly advanced to third base, avoiding big pieces of Springer’s bat on the basepath, and scored when Isiah Kiner-Falefa hit a sacrifice fly.
In the third inning, O’Neill hit a solo home run for his seventh career multihomer game, and Rafaela opened the inning with his ninth home run of the year.
“Returning home and inhaling that crisp northern air, even for a brief visit,” O’Neill remarked, was always enjoyable.
After three straight singles to start the inning, the Red Sox extended their lead in the fourth. In center field, Bobby Dalbec hit a liner that Kevin Kiermaier bobbled, allowing Connor Wong to score without a throw from second base.
With runners on the corners, Kikuchi struck out two of them and got away with a pickoff play that resulted in Romy Gonzalez getting tagged out following a rundown.
