TORONTO – Isiah Kiner-Falefa drove in Cavan Biggio with the winning run in the ninth inning to give the Toronto Blue Jays a 3-2 walkoff victory over the Baltimore Orioles on Wednesday at Rogers Centre.
Kiner-Falefa drove a pitch to the wall off Orioles right-hander Craig Kimbrel (4-2) to allow Biggio to trot home from third base.
Justin Turner, who had three hits for the Blue Jays, led off the bottom of the ninth with a single.
Biggio came on as a pinch-runner and took second base on an errant pickoff attempt. He advanced to third on Alejandro Kirk’s sacrifice fly.
Yimi Garcia (2-0) worked a clean ninth inning for the win. Anthony Santander homered for the Orioles (39-21), who lost for just the third time in 13 games.
Toronto (29-32) has won six of its last nine games. The Blue Jays outhit Baltimore 9-6.
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Both starting pitchers settled in after blips in the second inning.
Santander belted an off-speed slurve from Jose Berrios an estimated 436 feet to open the scoring. It was his 12th home run of the season.
Cedric Mullins added another run when he walked, stole second and scored on a double by Ramon Urias.
Quiet over the first two games of the series, Toronto’s bats finally showed signs of life in the bottom half of the frame.
Albert Suarez walked George Springer and he advanced to third base on a Turner double. Kirk hit a sacrifice fly to bring Springer home and Turner scored on a seeing-eye single by Kiner-Falefa.
The Blue Jays had a chance to take the lead in the sixth inning after Bo Bichette led off with a double. Kirk hit a two-out single to right field but Bichette was held by third-base coach Carlos Febles.
Reliever Jacob Webb struck out Kiner-Falefa to keep the game tied. Suarez allowed two earned runs, five hits and a walk over his five-inning appearance. He had four strikeouts.
Berrios was replaced by left-hander Tim Mayza in the seventh inning. The right-hander allowed two earned runs, six hits and three walks. He struck out a pair.
Mayza recorded two outs before Chad Green came on to get Adley Rutschman on a flyout. Green worked a clean eighth inning for Toronto.
Announced attendance was 27,929 and the game took two hours 32 minutes to play.
HARTLEY HERE
American actor Justin Hartley was on hand for the game. He starred in the NBC drama “This is Us,” and earned a Daytime Emmy nomination for his work on “The Young and the Restless” CBS soap opera.
COMING UP
Left-hander Yusei Kikuchi (2-5, 3.66 earned-run average) is scheduled to start for the Blue Jays on Thursday. The Orioles have yet to name their starter for the matinee.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 5, 2024.
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