Jose Bautista sparks as Toronto Blue Jays thump Houston Astros, 7-5: MLB Update
Toronto Blue Jays’ right-fielder, Jose Bautista had an extraordinary day with the bat as he went 3-for-4 including two homers and four RBIs in the Blue Jays’ 7-5 win against the Houston Astros at the Rogers Centre, Toronto, on May 21.
Bautista said of his performance, “It's always a surprise when you keep hitting home runs. I'm not surprised about the RBIs or the fact that I'm playing well. Given what happened last year, knowing what I feel like I'm capable of doing, I expected to perform at a high level.”
The Astros initiated their first inning in a style as they added two runs in it to take a 2-0 lead. Brett Wallace hit a sacrifice fly to the left-field position and Michael Bourn scored a single run. The second run for the Astros during first inning was taken by Hunter Pence when Chris Johnson took a single to the right-field, but Carlos Lee failed to score another run and was thrown out at third base. The second inning passed away score-less as no score was added from the either side.
The Astros were on top after the third inning also as they got a 3-0 lead when Johnson hit a single-run shot towards the right field and Lee scored a single. Wallace moved to second base at the end of third inning. The Jays’ batters were outclassed until fifth inning while the Astros extended their lead to 4-0 in the fifth inning. Lee scored another run on the sacrifice bunt of Johnson to the centre-field position.
The sixth and seventh inning went completely in favour of the Jays as they put six runs in these two innings. During sixth inning, Bautista hit his first home run (409 feet) off the left field while Jose Molina and Yunel Escobar posted two runs. Eric Thames scored a single run on the drive of Molina. Escobar then hammered a 413ft homer towards the left-field and Molina made a final run of three-run campaign in the seventh inning.
Thames was amused with the way Bautista batted right through the game. Thames said of Bautista, “Man, this guy's a freak. You think you can just hold him down, but he makes adjustments. He just smashes the ball.”
The score-card was 6-4 at the end of seventh inning. The Jays contributed one run in the eighth inning to get a 7-4 lead when Bautista struck his second 383ft homer of the game to the left-field. On the other hand, the Astros cut-off their deficit to 7-5 in the ninth inning when Angel Sanchez doubled to deep left-centre and Bourn posted a single run.
The Jays’ starter, Brandon Morrow, was little bit shaky with the ball, as he threw six innings with an ERA of 5.06 and gave away four runs on nine hits.
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