The Jays’ Darwin Barney crawls into third base after stumbling in the second inning during Monday’s game against the Orioles.Tom Szczerbowski/Getty Images
Their post-season aspirations basically up in smoke, the Toronto Blue Jays would love nothing more than to help inflict the same indignity on the Baltimore Orioles.
The Blue Jays (67-77) took a step toward that goal Monday night at Rogers Centre where they rolled to a 4-3 win over the faltering Orioles (71-73) in the opening game of a three-game series.
The Orioles came into the contest having just been swept by the Cleveland Indians and having lost four in a row. They started the day three games back in the American League wild card race.
Light-hitting Ryan Goins stepped into his seventh home run of the season to help pace the Blue Jays, who won for the third straight time.
Marco Estrada started for Toronto and earned the win, allowing two Baltimore runs off four hits over five innings while striking out seven. Estrada's record is now 8-8.
Six of Estrada's strikeouts were looking, an indication of how he was hitting the mark with his pitches.
"I thought his stuff was really good tonight," said manager John Gibbons. "They really battled him, made him throw a lot of pitches."
The Blue Jays scored their first two runs in the second inning where the Orioles committed two errors, including a strange one by rightfielder Mark Trumbo who mistakenly dropped a hit by Teoscar Hernandez into the front row of the seats.
Hernandez, who had two home runs in Sunday's win over Detroit, rapped out two more hits in Monday's win and made a fine play defensively in right in the eighth inning to rob Manny Machado.
Trumbo homered for the 23rd time in the Baltimore loss.
Gibbons also praised the play of Darwin Barney, whom he described as a modern day Wally Pipp, making his fifth straight start at third base as Josh Donaldson recovers from illness.
"He's on a roll," Gibbons said. "He's obviously swinging the bat really well and his defence has been great, too."
Barney had two hits in the game, including a double in his first at-bat for his sixth extra-base hit in his last nine games where he has hit .438.
The Blue Jays will be without closer Roberto Osuna for the next few games. He left the after Sunday's game for Mexico to join his wife, who is about to give birth.