Blue Jays stick with it in 14-0 rout of Padres

TORONTO – The Toronto Blue Jays had a refrain in their dugout on Wednesday night: “just keep swinging it.”

Toronto batters were drilling the ball, maxing out with Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s 112 m.p.h. ground out in the first inning, but the Blue Jays’ good contact wasn’t landing fair. That changed with Nathan Lukes’s two-run homer in the fifth inning for a 2-0 lead that exploded into a 14-0 rout of the San Diego Padres.

Lukes said that the way Toronto was hitting the ball, it was just a matter of time before the runs would start to pile up.

“We all thought it,” he said. “That’s baseball for you. It doesn’t matter how hard you hit it, it matters if you are able to touch first base.

“So finally, it happened. Put some hits together and just good things happen.”

Daulton Varsho’s grand slam highlighted a seven-run eighth inning as the Blue Jays (24-24) blew the game wide open with a total of 12 runs in the seventh and eighth.

Bo Bichette drove in a run with a fielder’s choice in the seventh and added an RBI single in the eighth. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and George Springer each had an RBI single before pinch-hitter Jonatan Clase added a two-run double in the five-run seventh. Addison Barger drove in a run with a double and Ernie Clement added another score with a single.

“That was the Blue Jays, that was the lineup, those were the hitters that we are,” said Lukes, who had his fourth homer of the season after having only one in 2024. “Hopefully we just keep on running with it.”

Toronto manager John Schneider said his team saw the kind of hard contact they were getting off of San Diego starter Randy Vasquez and that they just had to keep at it.

“The vibe is, just keep swinging it,” said Schneider. “That’s part of the game, sometimes. They had some hard outs too, that kind of kept the game close there.

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“It’s just keep swinging and the runs will come.”

SPLITTER SPLIT — After Blue Jays pitcher Kevin Gausman coughed up six runs in an 8-3 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays on May 15, he said that he was struggling with the shape of his splitter. That clearly wasn’t the case in Wednesday’s win as he struck out nine and gave up just three hits over seven scoreless innings.

“I felt like I had a really good bullpen in between starts and kind of made some mechanical adjustments and some grip adjustments,” said Gausman. “It definitely showed.”

It was the second game in a row where Toronto’s starting pitcher went deep into the game. Chris Bassitt threw six scoreless innings in the Blue Jays’ 3-0 win over San Diego on Tuesday.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 21, 2025.

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