Blue Jays a big hit in Minny, but George Springer injured

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Nothing, it seems, has gone right for veteran outfielder George Springer, an unwitting victim whose left big toe has twice been the topic of conversation.

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In each case, it involved the Minnesota Twins. Go figure.

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When the Twins were in town last month, Springer took a foul tip off his toe. It was later diagnosed as a fracture, prompting the Blue Jays to move him to the IL.

Three games after his Wednesday return, Springer took another ball to the same toe he fractured.
During the third inning of Saturday’s 11-4 romp over the hometown Twins, Springer was hit by a pitch on the toe by starter Connor Prielipp that sent his protective foot shield flying.

In obvious pain, Springer, who missed 18 games from the initial injury, was replaced by Jesus Sanchez.

There’s bad luck and then there’s this incredibly horrible set of events Springer has been forced to endure.

One might ask why the Jays would insert a left-handed bat in Sanchez to face the lefty-throwing Prielipp.
Of the club’s available bench players, with lefties Addison Barger and Nathan Lukes already on the IL, none hit right-handed.

X-rays showed no new fracture, according to Jays manager John Schneider.

The following are three takeaways on a day the Jays hit four homers and scored eight runs in the eighth.

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INEVITABLE FIRST

Dylan Cease wasn’t about to go much longer avoiding the long ball.

The hard-throwing right-hander had given up some hard contact in his previous six starts heading into Saturday, but finally gave up his first home run of the season when Byron Buxton tagged him for a leadoff blast.

Buxton has been on a tear of late, going yard in four of his past five games. He now has 10 on the season.

When Cease began the seventh inning, he joined Kevin Gausman as the lone starters on Toronto’s staff to get that far into a game. Fittingly, he led off the seventh by recording his seventh strikeout.

For Cease, the seven complete innings represented his longest of the season.

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POWER PLAY

Of the four home runs hit by the Jays on this day, three came from unlikely sources.

Myles Straw, if you may recall, was a complete afterthought when the Jays made the trade with the Cleveland Guardians last year.

In his first season with the Jays, Straw became one of many interchangeable pieces they would use in the outfield. This season, Straw has filled in for Springer, starting in right field and hitting leadoff on occasion.

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On Saturday, he went deep for just his second homer of the season. This was no ordinary dinger as Straw sent the ball into the second deck.

Two hitters earlier, Lenyn Sosa, who started at second base, launched his first long ball with the Blue Jays.

Sosa was acquired last month in a trade with the Chicago White Sox to address the many injuries the Jays were facing. He led the Chisox in homers last season with 22 but has been in a reserve role this season.

Sosa’s softly hit ground ball would give the Jays a 5-4 lead, becoming one of five players to knock in at least two runs in the rout.

Catcher Brandon Valenzuela’s three-run blast keyed the eighth-inning uprising.

GREAT EIGHTH

When it comes to power, Kazuma Okamoto has no peer, at least when it comes to his teammates.

At this rate, the Japanese star is profiling as a big bat, perhaps even prodigious.

For the third time in six at-bats, Okamoto launched a ball for a solo blast, this time in the sixth inning.

This was an epic blast, a 453-foot moonshot that eclipsed any homer hit by the Jays this season.

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Okamoto’s eight home runs are twice as many as any other Blue Jay.

If his recent at-bats are any indication, he has clearly assimilated to big-league baseball.

He went deep twice in Friday’s 7-3 win.

And after putting up cringe-worthy strikeout numbers through his first month with the Jays, it should be noted that the Twins have yet to ‘K’ him in the first three games of this series.

In the eighth inning of Saturday’s game, Okamoto stepped up to the plate with none out and runners at first and second. He took a wicked hack for strike two and then took a pitch to force a full count.

Okamoto then knocked in his 20th run of the season when he sent a ball up the middle and off the glove of Twins second baseman Luke Keaschall to score Ernie Clement as the Jays tied the game.

UP NEXT

Trey Yesavage is scheduled to make his second start of the season in Sunday’s series finale. In his season debut on Tuesday, the right-hander looked pretty good in providing the Jays with 5.1 shutout innings against the Bosox. Yesavage surrendered four hits and recorded three strikeouts in his 74-pitch outing, as the Jays won the game 3-0 … The Blue Jays are assured of a series split in Minny, but a win Sunday and they will run their series win streak to four straight.

fzicarelli@postmedia.com

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