{"id":886022,"date":"2026-09-09T19:28:25","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T19:28:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/886022\/"},"modified":"2026-09-09T19:28:25","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T19:28:25","slug":"soriano-sets-tone-as-blue-jays-rebound-from-sloppy-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/886022\/","title":{"rendered":"Soriano sets tone as Blue Jays rebound from sloppy loss"},"content":{"rendered":"

SACRAMENTO \u2014 John Schneider sat in the visitors\u2019 dugout at Sutter Health Park before Tuesday\u2019s first pitch as the temperature reached 33C\u00a0on the field.\u00a0With sweat forming on his brow, the Toronto Blue Jays<\/a> manager brushed aside any talk of conditions, whether it be\u00a0during\u00a0the recently completed series in Kansas City or here in Northern California.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is what you play for,\u201d Schneider said. \u201cThey understand that. I don’t think that the environment or the weather or anything has any bearing. We’ve got to go out and just play a little better than we did yesterday.\u201d<\/p>\n

And just like that, the Blue Jays proceeded to rebound from a mistake-laden loss with a buttoned-up, 4-2 win over the Athletics that featured everything from strong pitching to excellent defence to home runs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cJust a better game overall,\u201d acknowledged Schneider afterward.<\/p>\n

The victory allowed the Blue Jays (73-73) to keep pace with the Cleveland Guardians (74-72), who defeated the Baltimore Orioles (70-76) earlier Tuesday. Toronto sits one game behind Cleveland in the race for the third AL wild-card spot.<\/p>\n

Blue Jays starter Jose Soriano set the tone by turning in one of his best performances since joining the club at the trade deadline. The right-hander was in control of the A\u2019s lineup, with the only blemishes being solo homers to Carlos Cortes and Donovan Walton in the fourth and seventh innings.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Otherwise, Soriano pitched to contact and relied on an effective sinker that limited hard contact and kept the ball on the ground. He walked one batter, struck out three and recorded 16 outs via ground balls. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat’s him at his best right there,\u201d said Schneider. \u201cJust had a really good sinker, leaned into it as the game went on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Soriano said he had\u00a0a good feel for the pitch while warming up in the bullpen prior to the game and as it began, his mindset was to simply \u201cattack the strike zone\u201d and \u201cnot overthink or overdo it.\u201d<\/p>\n

His efficiency allowed him to get through seven innings on\u00a089 pitches \u2014 a relatively light workload that could allow the Blue Jays to keep\u00a0the right-hander\u00a0on regular rest to pitch in the weekend series against the Orioles, as opposed to giving him an extra day afforded by Thursday\u2019s off day.<\/p>\n

While Soriano did his part, the Blue Jays\u2019 infield defence acted as a vacuum, with Kazuma Okamoto<\/a>, Andres Gimenez, Ernie Clement and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. each contributing strong defensive plays. It was an overall cleaner brand of baseball than Monday\u2019s game, which featured three errors along with a few generous official scorer rulings that could also have been considered errors.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cUnbelievable,\u201d Soriano said. \u201cIncredible defence. I think I have one of the better defences behind me and today they showed what they can do.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the offensive side, Josh Smith<\/a> and Okamoto blasted back-to-back homers in the second inning off A\u2019s starter Jack Perkins. Okamoto\u2019s homer was his team-leading 30th,\u00a0and it ensured that he became the fifth Japanese MLB player to reach that mark in a season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Joining the 30-homer club was one of his goals for his first campaign in North America, admitted Okamoto.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s great to get to 30 in my first year,\u201d he said through interpreter Yusuke Oshima. \u201cBut we still got a few more games to go here, so I want to hit the switch and focus on the games moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps just as impressive as his homer on Tuesday was Okamoto\u2019s shored-up defensive work. He spent time with infield coach Carlos Febles on the field before the contest and was keen to improve on Monday’s rough game when he committed several costly miscues at third base.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHe works his tail off defensively,\u201d said Schneider. \u201cIt’s (nearly) 100 degrees (Fahrenheit) out here and he’s one of the few guys out there working today early with Carlos.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe speed of the game, he’s gotten a hold of that and he’s settled in really nicely.\u201d<\/p>\n

Up next for the Blue Jays is Wednesday\u2019s series finale against the A\u2019s.\u00a0Right-hander Braydon Fisher will start the bullpen game for Toronto,\u00a0and the temperatures are expected to be even hotter, with an early forecast predicting\u00a0it could reach as high as 38C.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Given the overall improvement shown during Tuesday\u2019s contest, though, there won\u2019t be a need for Okamoto, or others, to kill themselves in the blistering pre-game heat.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SACRAMENTO \u2014 John Schneider sat in the visitors\u2019 dugout at Sutter Health Park before Tuesday\u2019s first pitch as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":886023,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,85],"class_list":["post-886022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=886022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886022\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/886023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=886022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=886022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=886022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}