The Jays had been fairly cold offensively, so they appealed to the Baseball Gods on Friday night.
The Toronto Blue Jays improved to 6-7 on the young season with a much-needed 10-4 victory on Friday night over the Minnesota Twins.
Trailing 4-0, the Jays rallied for five runs in the bottom of the fourth, punctuated by Brandon Valenzuela's first career home run. It was a two-run shot that scored Andres Gimenez. Valenzuela is on the roster and in the lineup because of the left thumb fracture suffered by Alejandro Kirk last weekend.
Valenzuela wasn't the only Blue Jays hitter to homer, as Daulton Varsho tagged his 100th career big fly in the contest.
Toronto hadn't homered in its previous four games, so the homers were certainly a welcome site. The Blue Jays even appealed to their famed "Home Run Jacket," going viral for putting a note on it that read "Dear Jacket, Would you please wake up. We need homers." We'll let it slide that they didn't use a proper question mark in their appeal.
Elsewhere in the win
--The Blue Jays pounded 14 hits, with George Springer (1), Varsho (2), Vladimir Guerrero (3), Jesus Sanchez (1), Davis Schneider (2), Ernie Clement (2), Gimenez (1) and Valenzuela (2) each registering base knocks.
--Guerrero stole his first base of the season while Springer was thrown out for the first time.
--Veteran lefty Patrick Corbin made his first career start with the Jays, tossing four innings and surrendering four runs on six hits. He's in the rotation because of injuries to Jose Berrios, Trey Yesavage, Shane Bieber and Cody Ponce. He walked one and struck out three.
What is Corbin's future?
To be determined as the other starters begin to get healthy. As noted on Friday:
Berrios, who pitched until late in spring training before being diagnosed with a stress fracture in his right elbow, will begin his minor league rehab next week. He's hoping to reach 50 pitches in his first game, but will likely have more to follow.
Yesavage, who did not appear in a spring training contest because of a right shoulder impingement, has already made two successful minor league rehab starts. He will make another next week and will hope to reach into the 70s with his pitch count. That could be his final appearance before heading to the big leagues.
We also discussed whether or not Corbin would make sense for the Jays in the bullpen once he's no longer needed in the rotation.
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