Tigers a mess as Blue Jays roll 15-1 in Toronto
Edwin Encarnacion's three homers, plus several Tigers blunders, lead to worst loss of season
The Detroit Tigers had no answer for Edwin Encarnacion.
First, Encarnacion extended his hitting streak to 24 games with a three-run home run off right-handed starter Buck Farmer in the first inning. Then he added a two-run home run off right-hander Guido Knudson in the sixth. Then he hit a grand slam off right-hander Alex Wilson in the seventh.
Russell Martin added a two-run home run in the seventh off Wilson as the Blue Jays went on to embarrass the Tigers, 15-1, in front of a sellout crowd of 46,444 at Rogers Centre.
Encarnacion, who now has 29 home runs this season, finished 3-for-5 with nine RBIs and four runs scored.
“That was definitely embarrassing,” said Tigers manager Brad Ausmus. “No question. And it happens. Every team experiences games like that during the course of the year, but they’d probably tell you the same. That’s embarrassing when that happens to you.”
Ausmus said the only good news was “it finally ended.”
“When you see balls fly out of the park, it’s usually pitches up in the zone,” he said. “They have a very strong top half of the lineup. All five of those guys can hit the ball out of the park and they did today.”
The Tigers, who were beaten for the eighth time in their past nine games, fell to a season-low nine games under .500 and will try to avoid being swept by the Jays this afternoon.
A lack of offense, poor pitching and multiple mental mistakes contributed to the most lopsided loss of the season.
“We’re just not swinging the bats real well right now,” Ausmus said after his team had seven hits and left seven on base. “We seem to spread out some hits. We don’t string some hits together. We really haven’t since we were in Chicago.”
Tyler Collins and Buck Farmer made errors before Anthony Gose made a huge blunder. With Ryan Goins on second with one out in the fourth inning, Gose caught a fly ball hit by Josh Donaldson. Gose, apparently thinking it was the third out, began to jog in. Goins alertly tagged up from second and scored to give the Blue Jays a 6-1 lead.
“Unfortunately, that happens,” Ausmus said. “Most major leaguers do it at one time or another. A lot of time you don’t notice it because nobody is on base. Rarely leads to a run. But I’ve seen it happen before. … It’s not something you want to see. Really nothing you can say to him. He knows he screwed up and I’m sure it won’t happen again.”
Farmer gave up six runs (five earned) in four innings for the Tigers. He allowed eight hits and two walks with two strikeouts.
The Blue Jays added three more runs in the sixth, on an RBI single by Donaldson and a two-run home run by Encarnacion — to take a 9-1 lead.
“He was hot, he was hot before we got here and he certainly hasn’t cooled off,” Ausmus said of Encarnacion.
Right-handed pitcher Drew Hutchison limited the Tigers to one run on six hits over seven innings with seven strikeouts for the Blue Jays. Jose Iglesias scored from third when the Blue Jays failed to turn a double play on a ground ball hit by Ian Kinsler in the third.
Contact George Sipple: gsipple@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @georgesipple.
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