The Associated Press
Mark Didtler
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla.–Kendrys Morales gave the Blue Jays a much-needed lift after Toronto had started the regular season with consecutive losses.
Morales hit his fourth career grand slam, and Marcus Stroman pitched 6 1/3 effective innings, as the Jays beat the Tampa Bay Rays 5-2 last night.
“It was just a matter of time before the guys started heating up,” said manager John Gibbons.
Morales homered off Blake Snell (0-1) in the third.
Stroman (1-0), the MVP of last month’s World Baseball Classic, allowed one run and six hits in his 2017 debut.
“It feels really satisfying knowing that we had two defeats already, and it’s something that is hard to do,” Morales said through a translator.
“So I’m just happy that it happened in a win.”
Snell gave up five runs and four hits in 6 2/3 innings. The lefty struck out five and walked five.
Darwin Barney had a one-out single in the third, then Josh Donaldson and Jose Bautista both drew two-out walks before Morales sent an 0-1 pitch into left-centre field seats for a 4-0 lead.
“I’m upset about the walks.” Snell said.
Toronto didn’t homer in losing both games during a series at Baltimore.
The Jays have never gone homer-less in their first three games of a season.
The Jays signed Morales to a three-year, $33-million contract during the off-season to fill the offensive void left by the departure of Edwin Encarnacion, who joined Cleveland as a free agent.
Morales hit 30 homers and drove in 93 runs last season for Kansas City.
Toronto went up 5-0 on Barney’s bunt that first baseman Logan Morrison was charged with an error for mishandling in the seventh.
Barney had two hits and walked once.
Stroman, who induced three double plays, left after giving up Morrison’s run-scoring single in the seventh.
“I threw a lot of sinkers today,” Stroman noted.
“I never come in with necessarily a certain game plan,” he added. “It’s more like I see how everything is working and kind of go from there.”
Joe Biagini replaced Stroman and got an inning-ending double play from Tim Beckham.
Jason Grilli came in for Joe Smith with two on and one out in the ninth, and threw a run-scoring wild pitch before getting his first save.
