27 August, 2017
TORONTO -Bartolo Colon pitched into the seventh inning and Jorge Polanco hit a two-run double as the Minnesota Twins defeated the Toronto Blue Jays 6-1 on Friday night. He gave up four runs on seven hits and a walk to go with five strikeouts.
Polanco and Byron Buxton each had three hits and two RBIs for Minnesota.
Max Kepler hit his second career grand slam for Minnesota (66-63). Brian Dozier singled to score Granite, making the score 10-8 with still no outs in the inning.
Blue Jays left-hander J.A. Happ (6-10) allowed five runs, eight hits and one walk while striking out seven in six innings.
It was only the Jays second win in the past eight games, but their 50th in August the past three years, a winning percentage bettered only by the World Series champion Chicago Cubs.
Gee, the latest pitcher to enter the Twins' revolving-door rotation, gave up four runs over four innings, including the homers to Morales and Donaldson.
Rafael Lopez drove in two runners at the plate with a single, while Jose Bautista added a ball-sacrifice. The Twins do plenty of hitting here, too, in other words, but the Blue Jays are the masters. All six of those previous blowups were Minnesota losses, yet the Twins scored at least a half-dozen runs in five of them.
Tyler Duffey replaced Gee and allowed a walk, three straight singles, including an RBI hit by Kevin Pillar, and a sacrifice fly by Ryan Goins. Dozier scored on Buxton's bunt single fielded by Happ, who decided he had no play at home from his knees and found no one covering first base.
Minnesota's John Curtiss pitched a ideal bottom of the ninth in his major league debut.
Donaldson added a bloop double for a key insurance run off rookie reliever John Curtiss in the eighth.
The Minnesota Twins failed to gain any separation in the wild-card chase after playing five games against the American League's worst team earlier this week, but they got their weekend started off on the right foot against another cellar-dweller.
Gee was the starter and lasted only four innings. Biagini is 2-7 with a 5.60 ERA in 11 starts with Toronto this season and is 1-1 with a 4.26 ERA in 26 relief outings. The full benefit might have come Saturday, with Donaldson's three hits ending a personal 3-for-28 dip and helping Toronto to the win before 45,591 at the open-domed Rogers Centre.
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