Advertisement 1

Bringer of Rain, indeed: Donaldson homers three times in Jays' triumph over Twins

Article content

TORONTO — Josh Donaldson only played the part of a viking on TV, but he did lay waste to the Minnesota Twins’ pitching staff on Sunday.

The Toronto third baseman, who made a cameo appearance on the History Television show Vikings earlier this year, smacked three home runs off three different Minnesota pitchers in front of 47,444 ecstatic fans at the Rogers Centre on Sunday to lead the AL East leading Blue Jays to a 9-6 comeback victory over the Twins — giving the Jays their fifth series sweep of the season.

Donaldson recorded his first career three-home run game despite fouling a ball hard off the top of his right kneecap in the first inning — a shot that, if not for a high pain threshold, and diligent work by the training staff, might have sent him to the showers early.

“It was one of those things where, I’ve never been shot before but, if I could relate it to something, it felt like I just got shot in the knee,” said the 2015 AL MVP. “I tried to put some weight on it but it just wasn’t happening.

“Yeah, it hurt pretty bad,” Donaldson added. “It was kind of hard for me to stand on it at the beginning. It didn’t really linger with me too long, but the initial response from it was I couldn’t really stand on it.”

The Jays were certainly thrilled that Donaldson was able to stay in the game and contribute with three homers, four RBIs, there runs and a walk.

“It doesn’t get any better than that,” said Jays manager John Gibbons. “He’s heating up. He had that little stretch where he cooled off like everybody. But you could start to see it — I think it was the beginning of this homestand — where he was just missing some pitches. He had a couple of breaking balls that he skied, just missed them. But he’s capable of that (three homers in a game). We’ve got a few guys that are capable of doing something like that. It’s a rare feat, but realistically we could do that with some other guys.”

In the third inning, Donaldson smacked a solo home run off Minnesota starter Kyle Gibson to the second deck in left to give the Jays a 2-1 lead and then hammered a two-run homer to centre in the seventh off reliever Pat Light to put Toronto ahead 8-5. Donaldson was back at it again in the eighth when he hammered another homer to centre, this time off of Alex Wimmers. The Rogers Centre faithful celebrated the milestone hit with chants of ‘MVP!’ ‘MVP!’ and by throwing hats on to the field (to acknowledge the baseball version of a hat trick). Donaldson popped out of the dugout and waved in acknowledgement. His hat-trick marked the 21st time in Jays history a player hit three dingers in a game. Surprisingly, for Donaldson, it was his first major-league curtain call.

“I’ve never had a curtain call before so that was nice,” he said. “I tried to enjoy it for a second, Eddie (Encarnacion) was on deck after I hit the third one and he had a huge smile on his face.”

It wasn’t all smiles and chuckles for Donaldson, however. After taking that ball off his knee, he made a throwing error to second in the third inning which resulted in the eventual first run by the Twins.

But that all became a footnote once the balls began flying out of the park. Donaldson now has 33 homers on the season and reached base in 23 of his past 24 starts. He also ranks second in the American League with 85 walks (Mike Trout had 90 prior to Sunday’s games).

Troy Tulowitzki also hit a home run for Toronto, his 22nd of the season, a solo shot in the sixth.

Reliever Scott Feldman picked up the win in relief for the Jays. R.A. Dickey started and went six innings, giving up five runs (three earned), his one bad inning the fifth when he gave up four runs. Light earned the loss. Jose Bautista went 3-for-5, including a double, in the game.

The victory gives the Jays 29 come-from-behind wins this year and three in a row. They also moved to a season-high 18 games over .500.

They now head out on a 10-day, nine game road trip starting Monday with three in Baltimore and three in Tampa Bay and New York, with a day off on Thursday.

YES SIR, YES SIR, THREE BAGS FULL

A hockey tradition is becoming something that members of the Blue Jays are starting to cherish.

Last year, when Edwin Encarnacion hit three homers at the Rogers Centre in a win over the Detroit Tigers, fans scattered the infield with hats, as Canadians do at hockey games when a player scores three goals in a game.

The tradition continued on Sunday at the Rogers Centre as the Bringer of Rain, Jays’ third baseman Josh Donaldson, became the Bringer of Hats after clobbering three home runs for the first time in his career in a 9-6 victory over the hapless Minnesota Twins. After his third dinger in the eighth, Donaldson was showered with hats, caps and various other head apparel. Afterwards, there were three large bags of them sitting in front of his locker.

“It’s nice. I think it’s one of those things as a baseball player you kind of want to happen eventually one day,” said Donaldson, of going yard three times. “It’s kind of a rare thing and I was happy to do it, and especially last year to see Edwin do his and how the fans responded, it was great.”

“You don’t see something like that very often,” added Toronto starter R.A. Dickey. “It’s neat. It’s unique to this area so it’s really cool.”

SBuffery@postmedia.com

Article content
Advertisement 2
Advertisement
Article content
Article content
Latest National Stories
    This Week in Flyers