Minnesota @ Toronto preview
Rogers Centre
Last Meeting ( May 11, 2024 ) Minnesota 8, Toronto 10
The Toronto Blue Jays hope to parlay a comeback victory Saturday into a series win over the visiting Minnesota Twins on Sunday afternoon.
With a rare offensive outburst, the Blue Jays overcame a 7-1 deficit Saturday to beat the Twins 10-8. The teams have split the first two of the three-game series.
The 10 runs and 16 hits were season bests for the Blue Jays, who won for only the fifth time in 16 games despite winning two of their past three.
The loss ended Minnesota's seven-game road winning streak and was just the third defeat in the past 19 games for the Twins.
The Blue Jays are scheduled to start right-hander Alek Manoah (0-0, 13.50 ERA) for his second start of the season on Sunday. He is 2-0 with a 3.09 ERA in two career starts against the Twins.
Minnesota is scheduled to start right-hander Bailey Ober (3-1, 4.42) in the rubber match. Ober is 1-2 with a 4.40 ERA in three career starts against Toronto.
In their win on Saturday, the Blue Jays had four hits and three RBIs from Vladimir Guerrero Jr. They also had three hits and two RBIs each from Danny Jansen and Davis Schneider. Jansen had a two-run homer, and Schneider and Bo Bichette each had a solo shot. Ernie Clement's RBI single in the seventh broke an 8-8 tie.
Over his past 16 games, Schneider is hitting .348 (16-for-46) with six doubles, two home runs, seven RBIs and 10 walks. He was batting leadoff for the second straight game on Saturday.
Guerrero has a hit in 11 of his past 12 games, batting .408 (20-for-49) with three doubles, one home run and nine RBIs.
The offensive output encouraged the Blue Jays.
"Vladdy swinging the bat the way he is obviously helps," manager John Schneider said. "Those are really, really good at-bats by him. And I know we've been talking about it for a couple of weeks now, but these guys are better than what they've shown up to this point. A lot of those guys you can say that about. So the confidence hasn't wavered. And hopefully this type of win gets you rolling a little bit."
The Twins had a three-run homer and a double from Carlos Santana on Saturday. He has two homers in the series. Ryan Jeffers added his ninth homer of the season, a solo shot.
Max Kepler was 2-for-5 for Minnesota, extending his career-best hitting streak to 13 games. Over the streak he has hit .432 (19-for-44) with six doubles, three home runs and 10 RBIs.
But all of the offense wasn't enough for the Twins to avoid a disappointing loss.
"You're on top of the world for an hour, three or four innings," Minnesota manager Rocco Baldelli said. "We probably scored a bunch of our runs with good swings and having a good idea and following with a plan against a pitcher (Toronto starter Kevin Gausman). But the same thing works on their end, too. They couldn't stop us early in the game, and we couldn't stop them in the middle of the game and late in the game."
Toronto outfielders George Springer and Kevin Kiermaier, both of whom missed Friday's game because of illness, returned late in the game Saturday.
Springer walked as a pinch hitter in the seventh and remained in the game as the right fielder. Kiermaier entered the game to play center field in the eighth.
--Field Level Media