Blue Jays dominate Orioles to keep post-season dreams alive
CBC
Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Teoscar Hernandez, George Springer, Bo Bichette and Danny Jansen jacked long balls to set a club record for homers in a season and keep the Blue Jays playoff hopes persistent on the eve of the final day of the regular season.
The five-homer, 14-hit game backed a 10-strikeout outing from rookie starter Alek Manoah in Toronto's 10-1 victory against the lowly Baltimore Orioles on Saturday.
The Blue Jays have drilled a Major League Baseball-leading 258 homers this season, one better than the club record of 257 set in 2010.
"It's October baseball and we're trying to make a push," Manoah said. "We're just focused on controlling what we can control."
The Blue Jays and Yankees (91-70) could find themselves in a four-way tie with the Boston Red Sox (91-70) and Seattle Mariners (89-71) at the end of the regular season.
That would mean two tie-breaker games on Monday, with the winners gaining the two American League wild-card slots and playing on Tuesday.
The Blue Jays enjoyed a 6-1 lead after two innings before 29,916 at the Rogers Centre. Guerrero smoked a two-run monster homer off the third-deck restaurant in left field in the first inning. His 47th of the year tied the record for homers in a season by a player age 22 or younger, set by the great Eddie Mathews in 1953.
