The Toronto Blue Jays' offense looked right at home in Thursday’s Game 1 win over the Texas Rangers, even though the game was played at Globe Life Park in Arlington, Texas, instead of the Rogers Centre.
The Blue Jays scored 10 runs, something they’d done 14 times during the regular season (tied for second most in the American League), and a couple of bats came alive in a big way.
The 10-1 win was the largest victory in a postseason game in Blue Jays history.
Donaldson figures it out
Josh Donaldson became the first player in Blue Jays history to go 4-for-4 in a postseason game (the sixth with a four-hit game).
The Rangers had vexed Donaldson during the regular season, holding him to 3-for-28. But in this game, working inside didn’t work and working outside didn’t work.
Donaldson recorded the third instance in Blue Jays postseason history of a player reaching base five times (without an error) in a single game. The others were both by Roberto Alomar, once in the 1992 American League Championship Series against the Athletics and once in the 1993 ALCS against the White Sox.
Bautista keeps on hitting
Jose Bautista’s home run was his sixth in the postseason, tying Joe Carter (who played with the Blue Jays prior to the wild-card era) for the most postseason homers in franchise history.
He has an RBI in six straight postseason games, the longest streak in Blue Jays history. The record is eight, shared by Lou Gehrig, Ryan Howard and Alex Rodriguez.
Bautista has 16 RBIs in 13 career postseason games. That’s tied with Bernie Williams, (his teammate) Melvin Upton Jr., Scott Spiezio and Charlie Keller for second in postseason history through 13 games. Nomar Garciaparra’s 20 are the most.
Also of note:
Upton also homered Thursday, snapping a 19-game postseason drought. Upton hit seven home runs in his first 10 postseason games, but hadn’t hit one since Game 6 of the 2008 ALCS against the Red Sox.
Troy Tulowitzki was 3-for-5 with three RBIs. His triple was the first in Blue Jays postseason history that came with the bases loaded.
Do big wins mean anything?
The Blue Jays are the seventh team to win Game 1 of a division series by at least nine runs. Of the previous six to do so, five went on to win the series. The exception was the 2011 Rays, who won Game 1 9-0 but then lost the series to the Rangers.