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Instant Reaction: Ninth inning home run from Davis Schneider lifts Blue Jays to surprising win in Houston

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Tuesday’s game against the Houston Astros could go down as the weirdest game all season.

In the second game of the three-game series, the Toronto Blue Jays defeated the 2017 and 2022 World Series Champions 2-1 in clutch fashion.

The game didn’t start out weird by any means, as it was a pitchers’ duel between José Berríos and Framber Valdez. That all changed when José Altuve hit his second home run of the season, a solo shot to give the Astros a 1-0 lead.

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That lead held for a while, and it looked as if the Blue Jays were going to be shut out for the second consecutive game. It didn’t help matters that Vladimir Guerrero Jr. reached to start the inning, only for Bo Bichette to ground into Toronto’s third double play of the game.

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However, Justin Turner reached on a walk, the fourth time he had reached, giving the Blue Jays an opportunity to take the lead with Davis Schneider up at the plate. Babe Schneider proceeded to go deep to make it a 2-1 game, while Chad Green closed it out.

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Let’s talk about some weird things that happened. As you likely know, if the ball hits the runner in the base path, the player hit by the ball is out. Throughout all the years of watching baseball, I faintly remember seeing this happen like once at most. However, the Blue Jays got out of a jam when the ball hit Altuve who was heading to third.

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In the bottom of the eighth, the Blue Jays moved Schneider from the outfield to the infield, giving the team a five man infield. Now, this has happened before, but it was in the bottom of the eighth with one out and a runner on third. I’ve never seen it done this early before. 

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Lastly, Alejandro Kirk picked off Jake Meyers in the bottom of the ninth, but it wasn’t due to his cannon of an arm, as Meyers tripped heading to second. Isiah Kiner-Falefa missed the tag, but Meyers was out of the base path.

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Things worth mentioning…

José Berríos had a great game, finishing with a line of 6 IP, 6 H, 1 ER, 3 BB, 2 K. While he didn’t strike out a ton of batters, he was able to get out of jams consistently and brought his season ERA down to 2.25.

Yimi García is a fantastic reliever and he needs to be appreciated more. With Jordan Romano and Erik Swanson down, he’s the de facto closer, but had come in during the seventh inning with runners on the corners with no outs. He struck out a batter to end the inning while generating some weak contact for the other two outs.

Justin Turner went 3-3 with a walk, bringing his season slash line to .350/435/.700. Moreover, this was his second three-hit game in the past three games. What a great signing he has been early in the season.

Up next: The Blue Jays will play the rubber match of this series on Wednesday at 8:10 PM ET. Chris Bassitt is set to make his second start of the season and he’ll be up against Cristian Javier. Afterwards, the Jays will play a three-game series in New York against the Yankees, before returning home to host the Seattle Mariners on Monday.

As always, you can follow me on Twitter @Brennan_L_D.

ARTICLE PRESENTED BY BETANO