TORONTO – On the morning of April 16, 2018, a chunk of ice fell from the CN Tower and punctured a hole about a metre wide by two metres long in the thin PVC sheeting that makes up the Rogers Centre roof. The impact was strong enough to trip alarms inside the stadium and attached hotel. Smaller shards had caused damage elsewhere on the lid, too, causing some flooding in the building.
Quite obviously, the Toronto Blue Jays and Kansas City Royals game that night had to be postponed, leading to a doubleheader the next day, swept by the home side 11-3 and 5-4.
That was the last twinbill at the dome until Saturday, which opened with Marcus Semien hitting a walk-off homer on Matt Barnes’ first pitch to secure a 1-0 win over the Boston Red Sox.
The homer was the all-star second baseman’s first career game-ender.
“That was great,” said Robbie Ray, who threw six two-hit, two-walk innings with five strikeouts before making way for closer Jordan Romano in the ninth. “It was a pitcher’s duel today, (Nick Pivetta) had a great game as well and we were just able to come out on top at the end. When Semien hit that first-pitch home run, it was amazing. Everybody was screaming and yelling. It was a fun little experience for sure.”
Jose Berrios starts against Tanner Houck in the nightcap looking to extend the Blue Jays’ current run of five straight wins and eight in nine outings since returning north. At 59-49, they’re now just one loss back of the reeling 64-48 Red Sox in the loss column.
“We’re kind of clicking on all cylinders,” said Ray. “That’s something we talked about earlier in the year, it seemed like when we were pitching, the hitting was lagging behind, when we were hitting really well, we were giving up runs. It feels like right now that everything’s coming together. We’re pitching really good. We’re hitting, guys are getting on base, we’re getting them over, getting them in. We’re doing the small things. This really fun. And especially to be able to do it here in Toronto in front of the home crowd is great.”
This one was unique for several reasons, and not only because it’s the first of the four doubleheaders ever at Rogers Centre to be split on two separate tickets. The extra game is a makeup of a July 20 rainout in Buffalo, N.Y., and given the option of sneaking in another game onto their Toronto schedule, the Blue Jays immediately seized the opportunity.
Adding to the unusual circumstances is that the Red Sox were hit by some COVID-19 cases, with bench coach Will Venable testing positive and first-base coach Tom Goodwin in quarantine for exposure. Slugger J.D. Martinez was also placed on the COVID-19 injured list, leading to manager Alex Cora and several others to mask up in the visitor’s dugout.
“We have to be careful, right?” said Cora. “We’ve got to take care of our group. As for now, we’ll do our best to wear masks in the dugout and obviously inside.”
The Red Sox are believed to be beneath Major League Baseball’s 85 per cent vaccination threshold.
Both Ray and Pivetta starters carried no-hitters into the fifth inning and the first real threat came from the Red Sox in the sixth, when Bobby Dalbec opened the inning with a walk and Jonathan Arauz, after failing to get a sacrifice bunt down, lined a single to left.
Ray recovered to strikeout Kike Hernandez before Alex Verdugo hit into a controversial fielder’s choice, as he beat the throw at first but missed the bag. The Blue Jays challenged and a crowd of 14,768 roared as they saw the replay and then booed when he was ruled safe, possibly because Lourdes Gurriel Jr.’s foot slid back into the basepath altering Verdugo’s path.
No matter, Ray promptly induced an inning-ending pop-up from Xander Bogaerts to escape the jam.
“I knew it wasn’t just going to be a cut and dry thing because (Gurriel) missed the bag,” Ray said of the Verdugo play. “It looks like he’s out and it was taking a long time for them to make the decision on it, so something just didn’t seem right to me. I just tried to stay focused through some extra warm-up pitches there to (Alejandro Kirk), kind of get my focus back. When they called him safe, at that point I was already locked in and ready to go.”
Pivetta, the Victoria native, was even stingier, allowing only a Corey Dickerson single in the fifth and George Springer walk in the sixth over his six innings of work.
Jordan Romano pitched a clean seventh before Semien closed things out.
