CLEVELAND (AP) — Franmil Reyes lumbered home on Óscar Mercado’s tiebreaking, two-out single in the eighth inning and the Cleveland Guardians beat the Toronto Blue Jays 4-3 Sunday.
Toronto took a 3-2 lead into the eighth, but Owen Miller’s one-out homer off Tim Mayza tied it. Mayza retired José Ramírez, but Miller drove a 2-2 pitch to the left field bleachers.
Adam Cimber (4-2) relieved with two outs and allowed Reyes’ single and Andrés Giménez’s walk. Mercado, who was hit on the left hand by a pitch in the third, lined a 2-2 offering to center, and the 6-foot-5, 265-pound Reyes slid home ahead of the throw that was cut off.
“I just stuck with the fastball and he threw it in a spot where I was able to get a barrel on it,” Mercado said.
Miller has hit his way into the everyday lineup with a .352 average.
“I always know that that wall’s pretty big in left, but I definitely knew I hit that one pretty well,” he said. “I guess you never really know. But, yeah, being able to get it up there a little bit, I could feel like that one was gone.”
Reyes stretched his hitting streak to six games, a span in which he’s 12 for 23 with five RBIs.
Bryan Shaw (1-0) pitched the eighth, and Emmanuel Clase worked a perfect ninth for his sixth save. Cleveland has won seven of nine after losing seven in a row.
George Springer’s sacrifice fly broke a 2-all tie in the seventh. Teoscar Hernández’s bases-loaded single gave Toronto a 2-0 lead after four batters, but the Blue Jays didn’t score again until the seventh.
Cleveland tied it in the third on Ramírez’s RBI triple and Miller’s sacrifice fly.
Blue Jays right-hander Alek Manoah, who came into the game tied for the major league lead with four wins, gave up two runs and struck out three in five…
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