Blue Jays use power to beat Red Sox

BOSTON—Take them out of Toronto and the Blue Jays still hit plenty of long balls.
Jose Bautista, Colby Rasmus and J.P. Arencibia hit two-run homers last night to lead the Blue Jays to a 9-6 victory over Boston despite two home runs by David Ortiz that tied him for the most multihomer games in Red Sox history.

It was the fourth win in six games for Toronto, which overcame two errors and blew an early four-run lead.
“The top of our order has been swinging good of late,” Blue Jays manager John Farrell said.
“The way Jose, Edwin (Encarnacion) and Rasmus have been going ... they’re swinging the bats well for us,” he added.
The Blue Jays are tied with the Yankees for the major league lead with 54 road homers and they have come in 39 games away from Rogers Centre.
They needed all of them yesterday because of Ortiz’s power display.
Ortiz hit a two-run homer and a solo shot, his 37th multihomer game for the Red Sox, tying Ted Williams for the club record. He has 398 career homers that ties Dale Murphy for 51st all-time.
“I can’t tell you what to attribute it to,” Boston manager Bobby Valentine said of the 36-year-old Ortiz continuing to swing a hot bat.
“His batting practice every day is stellar, his games have been consistently terrific. The only time he got outside of himself was a couple of days ago.
“Then he got the off day (Sunday) and he came back with a vengeance tonight,” he stressed.
Henderson Alvarez (4-6) pitched five innings then left with right elbow soreness. He allowed five runs—three earned—and six hits to snap a four-game losing streak.
Alvarez is the fourth Blue Jays starter to go down with an injury in the last two weeks, with Brandon Morrow, Kyle Drabek, and Drew Hutchinson all currently on the disabled list.
“When he went out for the sixth inning he had trouble getting loose,” Farrell said.
“It was a precautionary thing. We’ll get him an MRI tomorrow. We don’t anticipate (him missing a start), but we’re going to take every precautionary measure,” he added.
Casey Janssen worked the ninth for his eighth save, striking out the only three batters he faced.
Boston’s Felix Doubront (8-4) gave up seven runs—five earned—and 11 hits in six innings.
With the score tied 5-5 in the sixth, Ben Francisco had a two-out double off the wall in centre field over Ryan Kalish’s leap and Arencibia homered off a sign over the Green Monster seats.
Bautista’s homer, his 24th, off reliever Matt Albers made it 9-5 in the seventh. The Blue Jays had a runner on first with two outs when heavy rain accompanied by lightning and thunder delayed the game.
After play resumed, Blue Jays first baseman Encarnacion and Bautista both made diving plays on balls to prevent any Red Sox comeback.
Following the game, and as a result of another injury to their starting rotation, the Blue Jays signed 49-year-old left-hander Jamie Moyer to a minor league contract
The veteran pitcher, who was cut by Baltimore over the weekend, will report to the team’s triple-A club in Las Vegas, where he will attempt to crack the Jays’ roster.
In other AL action yesterday, the NY Yankees thumped Cleveland 7-1, Detroit routed Texas 8-2, Minnesota defeated the Chicago White Sox 4-1, Kansas City shutout Tampa Bay 8-0, and Oakland edged Seattle 1-0.