Bichette makes history while Blue Jays slug 6 more home runs to rout Rays in Buffalo
He becomes 1st shortstop to hit extra base hit, RBI in 7 straight games since 1920
Teoscar Hernandez hit two of Toronto's six home runs, Bo Bichette connected for the fourth straight game and the Blue Jays kept knocking balls out of their new Buffalo park, beating the Tampa Bay Rays 12-4 Friday night.
Randal Grichuk hit a tying homer in the sixth, Bichette added a three-run drive and Hernandez connected to cap the five-run inning that made it 8-4.
"They got themselves in hitters' counts, and they made us pay for it," Rays manager Kevin Cash said. "[In] the sixth inning, we hit for 30 minutes and got one run. They hit for four minutes and got five. It's tough to combat that."
Rowdy Tellez and Cavan Biggio also homered for the Blue Jays. In three games so far at the home of their Triple-A affiliate, they have scored 25 of their 28 runs on long balls, including 22 of their last 23.
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Blue Jays manager Charlie Montoyo doesn't believe that his team is relying too much on the home run.
"We did get on base," Montoyo said. "Then we get the three-run homers and the two-run homers. Any good team has to get on base."
In addition to suiting the talent of Toronto hitters, the Buffalo park is a little tighter down the lines than Rogers Centre in Toronto. On the American side, it's 325 feet to the corners, 371 to left-centre, 367 to right-centre and 404 to straightaway centre field.
"For me, it's not different," Hernandez said. "We're just enjoying our game. I'm just trying to hit the ball."
Brandon Lowe homered and drove in three runs for Tampa Bay, which had its six-game winning streak snapped. Lowe has an extra-base hit in six straight games and has homered in three straight games. He's also gone long in four of the five games he's played in Buffalo, having hit homers in three of four games played with the Triple-A Durham Bulls in 2018.
Bichette bats way into history books
Toronto has scored 10 or more runs in two straight games for the first time since June 2016, when it put up 13 in back-to-back games at Philadelphia and Baltimore.
Bichette, meanwhile, is only the third player in MLB history with 38 extra-base hits in his first 59 games, joining Joe DiMaggio (46) and Cody Bellinger (38). In addition, his streak of seven games with an extra-base hit and an RBI is the longest streak by a shortstop since 1920, when RBI became an official stat.
Toronto reliever Wilmer Font (1-1) faced one batter, inducing a double-play grounder in the top of the sixth, to earn the win. Ryan Thompson (1-1) took the loss.
