by Jerry Feitelberg

The Toronto Blue Jays remained red-hot as they beat the A’s 4-2 in the first game of a three-game series in Toronto Tuesday night. The A’s had three former Blue Jays in the lineup. Brett Lawrie was at third, Danny Valencia was the DH and Kendall Graveman was pitching for the Green and Gold. Graveman deserved a better fate as the A’s defense committed two errors in one inning allowing three runs to score. Two of the runs were unearned.  Toronto slugger, right fielder Joey Bautista slammed a solo homer in the bottom of the fifth for the Jays fourth run of the game. The game summary follows below.

The A’s took a 1-0 lead in the top of the first. Coco Crisp walked with one out. Right Fielder Josh Reddick hit a ground ball to the hole between first and second. The ball was scooped up by Josh Donaldson who was at second because of the shift. Donaldson threw to Tulowitzki to get the force on Crisp and  Tulo’s throw to first appeared to nail Reddick. Bob Melvin challenged the call and Reddick was ruled safe after the review. Former Jay, Danny Valencia, in his first game back in Toronto after being designated for assignment, doubled to left-center to drive in Reddick.

The lead didn’t last long as Toronto scored three times in the bottom of the second. Sloppy play led to all three runs. Chris Colabello hit a line drive to left that should have been a single. However, Coco Crisp came in too fast and the ball bounced over his head and that turned the hit into a double. Jays’ catcher Russell Martin followed with a ground ball to shortstop Marcus Semien. Semien thought about throwing to third to throw out Colabello but thought it would be better to get Martin at first. Semien sidearmed the throw and it went over Ike Davis’ head at first base for an error. Colabello scored and Martin took second on the play. Semien committed his thirtieth error of the year and just his second in the last 25 games. He still leads the AL shortstops in most errors. First baseman Justin Smoak lined a ball to deep left field. Martin scored and it appeared that Crisp’s throw to Eric Sogard was in time for the out. The Jays challenged the call and for the second time in the game, a call was overturned. Second baseman Eric Sogard committed the A’s second error of the inning when he couldn’t handle a sharp ground ball off the bat of Kevin Pillar. The error allowed Smoak to score the third run of the inning.

Jays’ slugger Joey Bautista hit a solo homer  with two outs in the bottom of the fifth to give the Jays a 4-1 lead. the next hitter Colabello singled and that ended the night for Graveman.

The A’s made it a 4-2 game in the top of the eighth. Semien reached on an infield single and advanced to second on a sacrifice bunt by Sogard. Billy Burns singled to drive in Semien, but the A’s could do no more as they fall to the Jays by a final of 4-2.

Game Notes- Kendall Graveman took the loss and is now 6-8 for the year. He pitched 4 and 2/3rds innings, allowing 5 hits and four runs. Two of the runs were unearned. The Jays’ starter, Drew Hutchison, won his eleventh game of the year for Toronto.

Toronto is smoking hot as they won the ninth game in a row and are 12-0 in games that Troy Tulowitzki has started since coming over from Colorado on July 28th.

Aaron Brooks will be making his third start for the A’s and Mark Buehrle will go for Toronto.

Attendance was 39,381 and time of game was 2 hours and thirty-five minutes.