Story by
Ernie Clement Puts Himself in Historic Company as Toronto Blue Jays Win Again
- Story by
- Ernie Clement Puts Himself in Historic Company as Toronto Blue Jays Win Again
The Toronto Blue Jays pulled back to the .500 mark on Friday night with a 9-2 win over the Kansas City Royals at Kauffman Stadium. With the win, the Blue Jays are now 71-71.
Unfortunately, they actually fell back to 1.0 game behind the Cleveland Guardians in the battle for the third and final wild card spot. The Guardians swept the Detroit Tigers in a doubleheader to gain 0.5 games on Toronto despite the Jays' win.
Advertisement
The Blue Jays used a bullpen game on the mound, getting two innings from Jameson Taillon, two from Joe Mantiply, one from Braydon Fisher, one from Brendan Little and three from Michael Lorenzen. Mantiply got the win. He was just activated off the injured list earlier this week.
At the plate, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Alejandro Kirk, Ernie Clement and Myles Straw registered multi-hit games and rookie Sean Keys hit his second career home run. Clement had a double, marking his 30th of the season. As noted by StatsCentre, he now had 40 extra-base hits on the season, joining Marcus Semien, Devon Travis, Aaron Hill, Orlando Hudson, Tony Fernandez, Roberto Alomar and Damaso Garcia as the only Blue Jays second basemen to have 40 extra-base hits or more in a season.
Clement, who assumed a starting middle infield position this year in the absence of Bo Bichette, is hitting .276. Even though the Blue Jays offense has been generally tepid, he's been solid, providing the highest batting average of any regular starter in the lineup.
Toronto Blue Jays second base Ernie Clement (22) hits a single during the sixth inning against the Kansas City Royals at Kauffman Stadium. William Purnell-Imagn Images
The Blue Jays will play the Royals again on Saturday night at 7:10 p.m. ET. Max Scherzer, who is coming off a dominant start against the Seattle Mariners, will start against veteran right-hander Seth Lugo.
Advertisement
Scherzer is 2-7, but his ERA has dropped to 6.16. Lugo is 6-8 with a 5.03 ERA.
Also in the news for Toronto
Major League Baseball released the spring training schedules for all 30 teams on Friday, though no one actually knows if the full spring training will happen because of pending labor issues between the MLB owners and the Players Association.
As is customary, Blue Jays spring training will be held in Dunedin, Fla. and the Jays will compete in the Grapefruit League. The first spring training game is set for Feb. 19 and the final one is set for March 21, which leads up to an anticipated Opening Day of March 25 at the New York Yankees.
