Blue Jays outlast Guardians in opener as another late rally seals third straight win

TORONTO – Nathan Lukes drove in two runs with an RBI single in the eighth inning as the Toronto Blue Jays defeated the Cleveland Guardians, 5-3, on Friday night at Rogers Centre.

With the score knotted at three, George Springer drew a walk to lead off the eighth and stole second, before Alejandro Kirk’s single to right field. Two outs later, Lukes ripped a single to right off Guardians reliever Jakob Junis to plate two runs and bring the 26,087 in attendance to their feet.

The win, Toronto’s third in a row, helped the Blue Jays move back to .500 (16-16). 

Leading up to Lukes’s hit, it was a back-and-forth affair, as the Guardians lived up to their reputation as a pesky team. 

Cleveland first baseman Carlos Santana opened the scoring with a solo home run in the second inning, his third career shot off Chris Bassitt. The Blue Jays took the lead in the third on Alejandro Kirk’s two-run single, but the Guardians tied the game in the next frame on Canadian Bo Naylor’s solo homer — a 106.2-m.p.h. drive over the centre-field fence.

George Springer gave the Blue Jays another lead in the fifth with his third homer of the season, but then the Guardians knotted the score on Santana’s RBI single against a drawn-in infield after a hard-fought, seven-pitch at-bat against Bassitt. 

Santana, a certified Blue Jays nemesis, entered the game slashing .284/.403/.518 against Toronto over his career with 16 homers and 45 RBIs over 86 games, numbers that were boosted by his output Friday.

Bassitt allowed three runs on seven hits over 5.1 innings, striking out four and walking none. He tossed 98 pitches and generated 11 whiffs, with four coming against his sinker.