At long last, the Blue Jays head to the second inning with a big ‘1’ on the scoreboard.
Toronto snapped a seemingly endless 29-game first-inning scoreless streak on Saturday against the Oakland Athletics after a Danny Jansen sacrifice fly brought home Spencer Horwitz.
Making history wasn’t in the cards for the Blue Jays as their 29-game stretch was only two games off the all-time record of 31 set by the Boston Bees in 1937. Their upcoming game on Sunday against the Athletics would’ve been the tying marker.
They now sit firmly in second place all-time after a scoreless first inning in Friday’s game broke a tie with the 1972 Kansas City Royals and 1948 Chicago White Sox.
But that’s all she wrote.
The Blue Jays got their rally caps on, as much as they’ve been since May 4, and took advantage of pitcher Luis Medina’s lack of control, drawing three straight walks to load the bases and giving Jansen a chance to bring one home with a deep enough drive to left field. No hits, but one run. That’s what they needed.
Horwitz, the Jays’ most recent call-up, proved to be the piece they needed to end the skid, tagging up at third and easily making it home. The 26-year-old was recalled from triple-A on Friday and inserted into the lineup for the first time this season on Saturday.
The weekend series against the Athletics proved to be just the medicine they needed, as the A’s give up the second-highest rate of first-inning runs in MLB, allowing a run 40.63 per cent of the time. Coming into Saturday’s game Toronto had only scored in the first inning in 12.7 per cent of games this season.