Four! Homer-happy Toronto tees off in Texas

ARLINGTON — The Blue Jays’ bats have come alive in Texas, and as a result, Toronto is one win away from advancing to the American League Championship Series.

The Blue Jays homered four times to take a stranglehold over the AL Division Series with a 5-3 victory over the Rangers in Game 2 on Friday afternoon at Globe Life Park. Toronto now returns north of the border with a 2-0 lead in the series and a chance to close things out on Sunday night, thanks in large part to Texas going 2-for-18 with runners in scoring position.

Game Date Time Matchup TV/Highlights Gm 1 Oct. 6   TOR 10, TEX 1 Gm 2 Oct. 7   TOR 5 TEX 3 Gm 3 Oct. 9 7:30 p.m. TEX @ TOR TBS/SN/TVA *Gm 4 Oct. 10 1 or 6 p.m. TEX @ TOR TBS/SN/TVA *Gm 5 Oct. 12 8 or 9:30 p.m. TOR @ TEX TBS/SN/TVA *- If necessary | All times listed ETShop for postseason gear: Rangers | Blue Jays • Complete Postseason coverage

Troy Tulowitzki, Kevin Pillar, Ezequiel Carrera and Edwin Encarnacion all homered for the Blue Jays. All four home runs came off Yu Darvish, which set a career high for the Rangers right-hander and also marked the most Toronto has hit in one postseason game. Tulowitzki finished his day 2-for-4, and he is 5-for-9 with five RBIs in the first two games of this series.

“Home runs are always a good thing,” Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said. “Some good at-bats, some unlikely guys. Carrera, he doesn’t hit a lot of home runs. Kev can hit his share. I know one thing about Pillar, he doesn’t necessarily hit a lot of them, but he hits some big ones … and of course Eddie does that all the time.”

• Pulling fast ones: Blue Jays pounce on Yu’s heat

The Rangers will turn to right-hander Colby Lewis in Game 3 as they look to keep their season alive, while the Blue Jays will counter with Aaron Sanchez, who led the AL with a 3.00 ERA during the regular season. In the 2-2-1 format during the Wild Card era (since 1995), teams that lost the first two games at home have gone 2-14, but Toronto came back from that deficit last year against Texas to advance to the ALCS.

“We have to win,” Rangers third baseman Adrian Beltre said. “There’s no tomorrow. Not only that, we’re trying to do what they did to us last year. Hopefully we can turn it around and do the same thing they did to us last year. We know we can do it. We just need to get it done in the field. There’s no doubt we believe in this team. We’ve got to find a way.”

Left-hander J.A. Happ picked up the victory for Toronto, but his outing was not as easy as the score made it seem. Texas had at least two baserunners in each of the first four innings of the game, but Happ managed to survive and pitch into the sixth. He was charged with one run on nine hits and a walk, while striking out five over …

continue reading in source mlb.mlb.com