Music: {allcanada} Blue Jays rally in 9th, win in record 16

Thursday, April 5, 2012

{allcanada} Blue Jays rally in 9th, win in record 16

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CLEVELAND – The Toronto Blue Jays made comeback victories a regular occurrence last year, but none of those wins had anything on their 2012 curtain-raiser Thursday afternoon.

The crescendo of optimism built during their torrid spring training was nearly halted after one rough inning for ace Ricky Romero. But their ninth-inning rally off Cleveland Indians closer Chris Perez picked things right back up before J.P. Arencibia delivered a three-run shot in the 16th inning of a 7-4 win.

The longest opening day game in big-league history – surpassing 15-inning affairs won 1-0 by Washington over Philadelphia on April 13, 1926 and 4-2 by Detroit over Cleveland on April 19, 1960 – featured a bit of everything, including the emptying of benches after winning pitcher Luis Perez buzzed Shin-Soo Choo, and Toronto's deployment of a five-man infield to escape a 12th-inning jam.

How do you come up with an encore after that?

The Blue Jays, non-existent offensively most of the day, came to life in the ninth against closer Chris Perez, getting leadoff singles from Yunel Escobar and Kelly Johnson, a sacrifice fly by Jose Bautista and a two-run double by Edwin Encarnacion that likely would have been a homer at the Rogers Centre.

Regardless, it erased a 4-1 deficit and triggered a torrent of boos from the Progressive Field opening-day record crowd of 43,190, which was only calmed when Vinny Pestano escaped the frame by getting Arencibia on a grounder to third and kept the game tied.

The teams traded multiple chances the next five innings – Toronto escaping the bases-loaded, one-out jam in the 12th on a 6-4-3 twin-kill from Asdrubal Cabrera – before finally nailing things down.

Brett Lawrie opened the 16th with a walk off Jairo Ascencio, who then mistakenly through Omar Vizquel's chopper to second on a hit and run and recorded no outs. Up stepped Arencibia, who after bunting a 1-1 offering straight back, tagged the next pitch over the wall in left, setting off a celebration in the Blue Jays dugout.

The homer ended an 0-for-24 run by the bottom four hitters in the Toronto lineup.

Perez pitched in parts of five innings, throwing four frames, before giving way to Sergio Santos after recording the first out of the 16th. The new closer capped off a stretch of 14 straight shutout innings for the Blue Jays, the last 11 of them from the revamped bullpen in a remarkable debut.

Jason Frasor, Darren Oliver, Casey Janssen and Francisco Cordero threw an inning apiece and Carlos Villanueva 2.1 before Perez took over.

Still, not everything went to plan.

Rajai Davis snuffed out a Blue Jays rally in the 15th when he didn't run on a bunt he popped up but eventually dropped in, allowing the Indians to turn a double play. Colby Rasmus's fielding error in the ninth allowed leadoff man Travis Hafner to reach second, leaving Cordero to work out of a jam. And Eric Thames extended a dreadful second for Romero by allowing Michael Brantley's two-out drive to fly over his head for a double.

Romero survived five innings without his best stuff, all the damage against him coming during a gruelling 43-pitch second capped by Jack Hannahan's three-run shot.

That a lefty hitter victimized the southpaw ace was no surprise, as for his career they have batted .280/.358/.471 against him compared to .231/.312/.343 for righties. A point of emphasis for him this spring was working to make his cutter more effective against left-handers, and to some degree that remains a work in progress.

The 4-0 edge was plenty for Masterson, who kept the Blue Jays lineup off-balance with a fastball that ran either down or away, and induced plenty of weak contact.

Bautista's homer in the fourth aside, a laser to left coming right after Kelly Johnson was brushed back prompting warnings to both dugouts, the Blue Jays were silent at the plate until he left.

Masterson allowed just two hits and a walk in his eight innings, striking out 10 batters.