 gave up three runs and six hits, walking none and striking out two. He retired the first nine batters in his sixth game for the Rangers, including four starts, and he left with a 2.87 ERA.Colon has gotten wins with 11 different teams in the majors, including the Montreal Expos. This was his 241st career victory - two short of tying Juan Marichal's mark for pitchers born in the Dominican Republic, and four from tying the record held by Dennis Martinez for most among Latin-born players.Jake Diekman worked the eighth, Kevin Jepsen got two outs in the ninth and Keone Kela finished for his sixth save in as many opportunities.Kevin Pillar homered twice and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. also went deep for the Blue Jays, who have lost seven of nine. Gurriel's homer was the first of his career. All three Toronto homers were solo shots.Shin-Soo Choo had three hits and three RBIs for the Rangers, who have won five of seven on the road.Profar and Chirinos hit back-to-back homers off Jaime Garcia (2-2) in the second. It was the first time this season the Rangers have hit consecutive homers.Chirinos, who sat out Wednesday and Friday because of a sore left wrist, hit his second off reliever Seung Hwan Oh in the sixth. It was his fifth career multihomer game.Profar homered for the first time since 2016 with a first-pitch drive off the facing of the third deck in left. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Profar entered with the fifth-longest homer drought among position players, a 227 at-bat slump. Profar has 13 career home runs.Pillar hit a leadoff homer against Colon in the fifth and added a one-out drive off Kevin Jepsen in the ninth for his third career multihomer game.Choo's two-run double in the fourth ticked off the glove of center fielder Pillar, who appeared to slow up as he approached the ball, apparently fearful of a collision with left fielder Curtis Granderson.Colon was perfect until Granderson's leadoff double in the fourth, but the veteran right-hander responded by getting the next three batters in order.TRAINER'S ROOMBlue Jays: 3B Josh Donaldson (right shoulder) started at DH for Class-A Dunedin Saturday, his first rehab game. ... C Russell Martin and 2B Devon Travis got the day off.UP NEXTRangers: LHP Martin Perez (2-2, 9.82) is 1-1 with a 2.08 ERA in three career starts against the Blue JaysBlue Jays: LHP J. A. Happ (3-1, 3.72) makes his sixth start of the season. Toronto has won Happ's past four starts.---More baseball: https://apnews.com/tag/MLBbaseball)
Rangers, Blue Jays look for better effort 2h ago• 3 min read TORONTO -- The Texas Rangers and the Toronto Blue Jays will be striving to play better Saturday afternoon after the sloppy opener of a three-game series Friday night.The Rangers could not hold a 4-0 lead and their sins included two errors, possibly because they were adjusting to the artificial turf of the Rogers Centre, before they were able to defeat the struggling Blue Jays 6-4."There were some great throws from our outfielders," Rangers manager Jeff Banister said. "Not a clean defensive game but good enough to get the win. We were able to make some plays when we needed to." The Blue Jays helped with some atrocious base running and the transgressions included the slow-footed first baseman Justin Smoak twice being thrown out on the bases, which partly offset his 4-for-4 game."Thrown out at third (trying to go first to third on a single in the third inning), that was just a bad mistake on my part," Smoak said. "I thought the ball got slowed down, but I guess it didn't. I'm not the fastest foot anyways so I have to be better at that. I was just trying to get to third base and it wasn't a good play there." "We didn't help ourselves out on the bases obviously tonight," Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said. "You never really know what happens, but we weren't really good on the bases. That's kind of rare. We didn't play good, it was primarily the base running things. You never know, it might have been costly, but really that was the first game (of the season) that looked like that." The Blue Jays (14-11) have lost three in a row and six of their past eight. After a solid start to the season, they were jolted back to reality by losing five of seven games to American League East rivals, the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox.They need to win the next two games against the Rangers to avoid losing their third straight series.The Rangers (10-17) have won two in a row for the second time this season. The win Friday was their first in the opening game of a series this season, the last team in the majors to do so. They had lost the opener of their eight previous series.The Rangers will start right-hander Bartolo Colon (0-0, 2.59) against Blue Jays left-hander Jaime Garcia (2-1, 4.57 ERA) on Saturday.Colon will be making his sixth appearance and fourth start of the season. He has a 2.79 ERA in three starts. In his two starts on the road, he has a 1.32 ERA.The 44-year-old retired the first 21 batters he faced April 15 at Houston against the Astros before allowing a leadoff walk in the eighth and then a double.In three starts against the Blue Jays last season, Colon was 2-1 with a 3.57 ERA with both wins coming at the Rogers Centre. He is 7-4 with a 4.68 ERA in 15 career starts at the Rogers Centre.Garcia has faced the Rangers once in his career, posting his first win for the Blue Jays on April 8 when he allowed three runs and five hits in 5 1/3 innings.This will be his fifth start of the season overall.Blue Jays reliever John Axford was reinstated from the bereavement list Friday and reliever Tim Mayza was optioned to Triple-A Buffalo. Mayza had been recalled from the Bisons last Monday when Axford was placed on the list and did not allow a run in two appearances.Axford allowed two hits and had two strikeouts when he worked the eighth and ninth innings Friday.Gibbons has been concerned about the heavy workload the bullpen has had early in the season. Starter Marcus Stroman did not help the cause Friday, allowing eight hits and six runs in 5 1/3 innings, to go 0-3 with an 8.88 ERA after five starts this season.
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