Jose Bautista and Josh Donaldson opened the game with back-to-back home runs and that was all the Blue Jays needed for their 3-1 win over the Minnesota Twins on Sunday afternoon.
Marcus Stroman was excellent for the Blue Jays, allowing just one earned run over seven and two-thirds innings on three hits. Stroman struck out three batters and walked two, forcing an excellent 13 ground ball outs.
Roberto Osuna entered with a runner in scoring position but needed just one pitch to get out of the eighth. He then pitched a perfect ninth for his ninth save of the season.
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Troy Tulowitzki contributed the Blue Jays’ third RBI of the day with a double while Michael Saunders and Kevin Pillar both contributed a pair of hits.
Following his home run, Donaldson stared directly into the Twins dugout while he crossed home plate, something that links back to yesterday’s game when Donaldson was ejected after getting into a verbal altercation with a member of the Twins (which the home plate umpire interpreted as himself, unfortunately.
Phil Hughes responded by throwing tight inside against Donaldson in the fifth inning, then behind him on the second pitch. Donaldson argued with home plate umpire Mike Ripperger, and was soon joined by manager John Gibbons who was ejected. It was Gibbons’ fourth ejection of the season.
Stroman got involved in the back-and-forth himself, jawing with Twins third-baseman Trevor Plouffe at the end of the sixth inning. Russell Martin had to stand in front of Stroman to direct his young pitcher into the dugout.
The Blue Jays are off on Monday, then return to play in New York against the Yankees where R.A. Dickey is scheduled to face Nate Eovaldi in the series opener.