Rowdy Tellez is certainly no stranger to Sahlen Field. He has played games in Buffalo as a member of the Buffalo Bisons and the Toronto Blue Jays since 2017. Tellez showed off his comfort zone with the ballpark on Wednesday Night as he belted two home runs to lead the Blue Jays to a 9-1 win over the Boston Red Sox.
Tellez has 18 career home runs at Sahlen Field with his time with the Jays and Bisons. He also seems to like playing against the Red Sox. In his career, he has nine home runs in just 20 career games against Boston.
With the Blue Jays looking to bounce back after the series opening loss to the Red Sox on Tuesday, Toronto got the start they wanted as their second batter of the game, Randal Grichuk, hit a home run to left-center field and the Blue Jays took an early 1-0 lead.
In the second, it was Tellez who blasted a solo home run to right-center field to put Toronto up by two runs.
Rain started to fall in the third inning, but play continued as the forecast called for light rain throughout the night. The grounds crew worked on the batters box and infield in between each inning as a steady, light rain fell through most of the game.
In the bottom of the fourth, Blue Jays slugger Vladimir Guerrero Jr. extended his personal hit streak to nine games with a double, which ties a career high. The next batter was Tellez, who homered for the second time in the game. It is the fourth time in his career that he has had a multi-home run effort in a game. That two-run homer put Toronto up 4-1 after four innings of play.
In the seventh, Toronto added to their lead with an RBI-single from Grichuk to put the Jays up 5-1. Then, Guerrero Jr. put the game away with a three-run double down the third base line to clear the bases and give the Jays an 8-1 lead. Then Tellez added to his great night with a single to bring home Guerrero Jr. to make the game 9-1.
Tellez finished the game going 3-for-4 at the plate, with 4 RBI and two home runs.
Jays starting pitcher Julian Merryweather was throwing heat early; clocked in the mid and upper 90’s in the early innings. Merryweather was making his first MLB start. He pitched the first two innings, had three strikeouts and gave up just one hit.
The Red Sox got their only run on a Mitch Moreland solo home run to left field in the fourth inning. Moreland leads Boston with eight home runs this season.
The two teams will meet again Thursday night at Sahlen Field at 6:37 p.m. to close out the three-game series.
NOTES:
- Toronto’s win put the team over .500 at 15-14 overall, and also one game over .500 at home at Sahlen Field where the team is now 5-4.
- Blue Jays outfielder Teoscar Hernandez is among the MLB leaders in home runs. He has 11 home runs to lead his team and only one less than the Majors’ leaders Jose Abreu of the Chicago White Sox and Fernando Tatis Jr. of the San Diego Padres. Abreu and Tatis Jr. had 12, as of late Wednesday night.
- Boston left fielder Alex Verdugo had his 14-game hitting streak snapped, he went 0-4 on the night.
- There were no noticeable signs of protests or anything related to the other MLB or NBA postponed games inside the stadium in respect to professional athletes players boycotting games over the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Both teams stood for the national anthems.