Today in Blue Jays History: Tulo Homers

Seven Years Ago Today

The Blue Jays were down two games to none in the best-of-five series 2015 ALDS against the Rangers. It was win or go home. And we got the win 5-1.

But it was too close until Troy Tulowitzki homered in the sixth inning. After that, we had many chances to blow the game open, but we hit into four double plays.

We scored a run in the third. Dioner Navarro doubled, Kevin Pillar singled to give us runners on the corners with no outs, but Ryan Goins hit into a double play. At least we got the run out of it.

And we go one more in the fourth:

Josh Donaldson started the inning off with a double. Josh moved to third on Jose Bautista’s flyout. Edwin Encarnacion was intentionally walked. Chris Colabello took an unintentional walk to load the bases. And Tulo walked to score Josh.

But then, with the bases still loaded, Navarro hit into a double play.

The big hit came in the sixth, Donaldson and Bautista opened the inning with singles. Edwin walked to load the bases, but Colabello hit into yet another double play, and I thought we were doomed to waste all our chances. From the recap:

Then, in the sixth inning, we get the bases loaded, and Colabello gets to a full count. I was sure he was going to get a hit or a walk. Instead, he hit the ball hard, but right at the first baseman, for a 3-2-3 double play. He couldn’t have hit the ball harder. The BABIP God, and he crushes into a double play. Lots of swearing from me.

Thankfully Tulo took a full-count pitch over the left-field wall, making it 5-0, and we could relax a bit.

On the pitching side, we got another excellent playoff start from Marco Estrada, going 6.1 innings, 5 hits allowed (4 singles and a double), 1 earned, 0 walks, and 4 strikeouts with just 1 run.

And the bullpen went 2.2 scoreless. Aaron Loup, Mark Lowe, Aaron Sanchez and Roberto Osuna didn’t allow a base runner.

We would win the next two games and continue to the ALCS.

From the recap:

Jays of the Day: Estrada (.269 WPA), Tulo (.235), and Pillar (.116, plus a couple of nice catches).