Inside The Blue Jays

Blue Jays Win on Kirk’s 2-Homer Game, White Sox Baserunning Boner

Kirk tripled his season home run total to help the Blue Jays pick up their sixth straight win.

Ethan Diamandas

© John E. Sokolowski-USA TODAY Sports

The fans were rocking in their seats—and who could blame them?

The Blue Jays—Teoscar Hernández, more specifically—had just bopped in two runs to flip the score from a one-run deficit to a one-run Toronto lead in the fifth inning. Hernández’s sinking liner off White Sox starter Lucas Giolito skipped just in front of Chicago center fielder Adam Engel, who dove for the ball, missed it, and lost his glove in a yard sale of a tumble.

Rogers Centre loved it. But Tuesday’s 6-5 Blue Jays win got so much better.

The next batter, Alejandro Kirk, initially swung wildly and missed on a tricky slider from Giolito. Then the same ball came across two pitches later and the Jays catcher annihilated it. Kirk bent his legs, dropped his bat head, and drilled the ball a Statcast-projected 420 feet.

As Kirk rounded the bases, touched home plate, and trotted to the Jays dugout for a date with the home run jacket and a hug from Vladimir Guerrero Jr., the home crowd seemed equal parts stunned and excited.

What had just happened? Did Kirk do it again?

Indeed, he had. Kirk homered just once in his first 41 games; he added two more longballs in the first five innings on Tuesday. 

"[Kirk's] approach was good the whole time because he was walking and even getting infield hits, and everything else," Blue Jays manager Charlie Montoyo said. "And now that our offense is doing better, he's just nice and relaxed and doing what he does."

In a span of five batters, the Blue Jays turned Giolito’s solid outing into his worst of the year—six earned runs on eight hits. The whole situation was a tad ironic since it was the Kirk-Hernández duo who banged him up earlier in the evening.

In the second inning, Hernández led off with a 108.9-mph liner off the top of the center-field wall. Kirk then brought his pal home from second with a sky-high fly ball that plopped neatly into the Jays bullpen.

With 11 extra-base hits in his last 20 games, the 23-year-old is finally seeing the power come around. He credited his offensive uptick to an ever-improving pitch selection and approach at the dish. 

"I feel like my plan, it's getting better every game," Kirk, who finished 3-for-4, said through an interpreter. "So that's why you see the results I'm having now."

Oh, but that wasn’t the end of it all for the Blue Jays. Of course it easily could’ve been, but lately the Jays have had a knack for giving their fans heart palpitations at some point over the course of nine innings. After a bonkers series sweep in Los Angeles, Toronto wasn’t about to halt the pandemonium express just yet.

Entering for Blue Jays starter Kevin Gausman, Trevor Richards gave up three straight hits and walked a batter to start the sixth. It was a dreadful mini-outing for Richards, and he got the hook before recording a single out. Adam Cimber replaced Richards and induced a fielder’s choice groundout that plated a run. With the score at 6-5 in Toronto’s favor, things got really weird.

Now one out in the inning with runners on the corners, Yasmani Grandal ripped a slicing fly ball to deep left field. Off the bat, it was clear the game would be tied. Reese McGuire would score from third and that would be that. Instead, Danny Mendick thought he’d test Lourdes Gurriel Jr. by tagging up from first base. Gurriel, who is known for his arm, quickly caught on, zipping a throw to nab Mendick at second for a double play.

While all this nonsense unfolded, McGuire, who had two doubles already in his return to Toronto, nonchalantly jogged home, even slowing down to look behind him. Because McGuire hadn’t hustled, the out at second was technically recorded before he scored, meaning the run at home didn’t count.

"That deflates a team and gets your team going and keeps the momentum on our side," Montoyo said of the baserunning miscue.

That boner of a play cost Chicago the game, though Toronto came close to giving it back. With Julian Merryweather on the slab in the eighth and two outs, a great backhand scoop by Bo Bichette and a one-hop throw to first prevented the White Sox from tying things up.

The defense doubled down with some excellence in the ninth, too, when Matt Chapman snagged a tough grounder, stepped on third, and fired to second for a clutch double play.

"As a third baseman, you've gotta think real quick what you're gonna do," Montoyo said of Chapman's play. "He thought real quick what he did. He threw to second base, and that wasn't an easy pick by [Santiago Espinal]."

When all was mercifully over, there were 11 total runs, 25 total hits, and the Blue Jays walked away with their fourth straight one-run victory and sixth win in a row.

It's chaos night in and night out, but right now Toronto is getting it done.

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Ethan Diamandas
ETHAN DIAMANDAS

Ethan Diamandas is a contributing writer who covers the Toronto Blue Jays for Sports Illustrated. He also writes for Yahoo Sports Canada and MLB.com. Follow Ethan on Twitter @EthanDiamandas

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