TORONTO – The Boston Red Sox may have known what was coming from Blue Jays pitcher Trent Thornton on Tuesday.
The righty admitted after Toronto’s 10-6 loss to Boston that he might have been tipping his pitches, adding that even his own teammates thought the Red Sox found an edge at the plate.
“Yeah, even Freddy Galvis told me after the game that I was doing a little something that even he could even see,” Thornton said. “We’ll take a deeper look at that.”
Rafael Devers hit two home runs, just one of those off of Thornton, and had six RBIs to lead the Boston offence.
Thornton also struggled with his control on the mound. He surrendered a career-high seven runs on a career-high 11 hits in 2 2/3 innings of work.
“He’s facing good hitting teams,” Blue Jays manager Charlie Montoyo said. “He was pitching behind in the count and up in the zone, that’s why he’s getting hit.”
After some solid outings last month, Thornton (2-6) is coming off a pair of difficult starts against tough divisional opponents. Last week, he lasted just 3 1/3 innings against the New York Yankees.
“I’ve talked to ( Blue Jays pitching coach Pete Walker) already and we’re going to look at some things we can possibly do,” Thornton said.
Christian Vazquez also went deep for the Red Sox (45-40), who won the opener of the three-game series at Rogers Centre.
David Price (6-2) picked up the win. The former Blue Jay struck out seven batters in his quality start. He allowed just two runs on four hits while walking four batters over six innings.
Danny Jansen hit his fifth home run of the season in the sixth inning for the Blue Jays (32-54).
Jansen has improved over the last week. He is batting .400 in that span with eight RBIs in his last seven games.
“I’ve been working on some things like lowering my stance and simplifying things,” Jansen said. “I made that adjustment back in that first game in New York (June 18). I feel good.”
It took just three pitches for the Red Sox to put up the opening runs of the game.
After Mookie Betts hit a single on an 0-1 pitch, Devers hit the first of his two homers on the night to centre field on the first pitch he faced, which gave Boston a 2-0 lead. Vazquez would hit an RBI double for a 3-0 lead, and Jackie Bradley Jr. capped the four-run inning with an RBI single.
In the second inning, Xander Bogaerts hit an RBI ground out for a 5-0 lead.
Later in the frame, Jansen would drive in a run on a ground-rule double for Toronto’s first run.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. had a chance to tie the game with one swing when he came up with the bases loaded and two out, but he would fly out to centre field to end the inning.
In the third, Devers hit a two-out, two-run single for a 7-1 lead. The hit also knocked Thornton out of the game.
Galvis hit an RBI single to make it 7-2 in the sixth inning.
In the seventh frame, Vazquez hit a solo homer to left field before Jansen responded with a solo home run of his own to left field in the bottom of the inning.
Devers hit his second homer of the night, a two-run shot over the left-field wall to make it 10-3 Red Sox in the top of the eighth.
In the ninth, Guerrero hit a two-run double to cut Boston’s lead to 10-5. Lourdes Gurriel Jr. followed that up with a sacrifice fly.
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