CLEVELAND, Ohio (92.3 The Fan) – Aaron Civale served up a pair of solo homers in the third and that’s all the Blue Jays would need to take Game 1 of Sunday’s doubleheader.
Teoscar Hernandez and Rowdy Tellez took Civale deep while Ross Stripling held the Indians to just one run on two hits in five innings of work as the Blue Jays won Game 1, 4-1.
Civale lost just his second game of the season and fell to 7-2 after surrendering four runs on 10 hits with a walk and two strikeouts in six innings of work.
“I thought he was pretty good,” bench coach DeMarlo Hale, who was filling in for Terry Francona while he attended a family wedding this weekend, said. “He made a couple of mistakes [with] the solo home runs but when you’ve been around this game long enough you’re OK with that.
“I don’t think we helped him as much as we could. The sun got in our eyes. There was a ball that dropped in down the right field [line], a cue ball base hit. He’s a competitor and stayed with it and kept us in position to come back and win a ballgame.”
Toronto cracked the scoreboard in the third when Indians first baseman Jake Bowers was unable to cleanly field a throw from shortstop Amed Rosario allowing Bo Bichette to reach base and Joe Panik to score for a 1-0 lead in the top of the third.
“I’ve made errors, everyone makes mistakes,” Civale said of the missed opportunity to turn the double play.
Stripling picked up his first win of the season for the Blue Jays to improve to 1-3.
Hernandez led off the fourth with a 433-foot solo homer to left for a 2-0 advantage. One out later, Tellez took Civale to right center for his third round tripper of the season.
“It was probably one of the worst sliders I’ve thrown this year and the split change didn’t do what I wanted it to so definitely mistakes on my part and they made me pay,” Civale said. “That’s what happens when you’re playing in he big leagues.”
Civale escaped trouble in the fifth with a pair of runners aboard and one out thanks to a double play.
Josh Naylor went 3-3 at the plate, including his fifth homer of the season to lead off the bottom of the fifth and prevent the shutout, for Cleveland.
“He’s got a better plan [at the plate],” Hale said. “We know he’s got the power to turn on it and hit it out of the ballpark but I thought he had a pretty good approach.”
Civale’s day ended in the seventh after he allowed a single and double to lead off the inning. Phil Maton loaded the bases with a walk and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hit a sac fly to center to score Toronto’s fourth run and put the game on ice.
