CLEVELAND, Ohio (92.3 The Fan) – Aaron Civale and Steven Kwan are used to playing in the rain.
Civale grew up in New England and Kwan played college ball at Oregon so Thursday night’s soaker was a reminder of the good old days for both of them.
Kwan touched them all with his first Major League home run in the third inning that tied the game at 2 and Civale picked up his first win of the season in the Guardians 6-5 victory over the Blue Jays in the opener of a four-game weekend series.
“Just a great baseball game – offensively, defensively, picking each other up,” Civale said. “That’s the brand of baseball that we play.”
Civale’s eight strikeouts were the most by a Guardians pitcher this season.
Jose Berrios suffered his first loss of the season for Toronto after being charged with six runs on eight hits in 4 2/3 innings,
It took three hitters for Toronto to jump on Civale before he settled in and retired 14 of the next 16 hitters. Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
smacked a two-run homer to the left field bleachers after Bo Bichette singled with one out in the top of the first for a 2-0 lead.
They wouldn’t touch the right hander, who threw 99 pitches, again until the sixth inning when Blue Jays designated hitter Zack Collins slapped a two-out, two-run double to right, just out of the reach of a diving Kwan to cut Cleveland’s lead to 6-4.
“Those last couple runs really bothered me because I really wanted him to get through the lefty but we had [Nick] Sandlin up, but golie he was approaching 100 pitches and I felt like maybe those runs were mine,” manager Terry Francona said. “I felt bad about that. I thought he pitched really well.”
Kwan missed the sinking liner by inches.
“I was joking around if I was 5-foot-10 I probably would’ve caught it,” Kwan said. “I was right there.”
The Guardians scored six unanswered starting with Kwan’s blast that landed in the right field seats and only cost him an autographed bat for the baseball.
“This whole thing’s been crazy,” Kwan said. “This has been a month of pure ecstasy for me. It’s been really fun.”
Kwan surprised himself with his power.
“I’m not a home run hitter so every time I hit a home run it’s the biggest shock to me,” Kwan said. “I saw on the replay it barely got out so…I’m glad it snuck out of there.”
Franmil Reyes singled to all three fields – left, right and center – to collect his first three-hit game of the season and raise his batting average 27 points to .184.
“It is just nice to see him smile,” Francona said. “I think it’s been wearing on him. I know it has and it was nice to see him look a little more hitterish, a little more comfortable in the box. Just nice to see him smiling. Hopefully he can relax and be who he is.”
Reyes has bounced back in a big way from an 0-26 stretch that lasted six games to go 6-for-13 over his last three games, including Thursday night.
“It makes me happy – it makes everybody happy – I know everybody on the team is waiting for that moment [for me to break out]” Reyes said. “I receive a lot of Instagram messages of fans supporting me, telling me ‘Cleveland loves me.’ They’re cheering for me, they’re waiting for that moment. It makes me happy.”
The Guardians scored three runs in the fifth on three consecutive tow-out RBI hits by Josh Naylor, Reyes and Andres Gimienez.
“I thought as a ballclub we did a really good job hitting the ball the other way,” Francona said.
Bryan Shaw and Emmanuel Clase held the Blue Jays scoreless over the final two innings to close out the game. Clase picked up his fifth save of the season.
