Ten starts into the season, Baltimore’s Kevin Gausman is still looking for his first win.
Edwin Encarnacion on Friday night hit a game-ending home run in the 10th inning as the Toronto Blue Jays beat the Orioles 4-3, snapping Baltimore’s winning streak at five.
Gausman allowed three runs, two earned, and eight hits in 6-1/3 innings, taking a no-decision for the seventh time in nine outings.
Photo: AFP
“When you have guys on base every inning, you kind of put yourself in a hole,” Gausman said.
Gausman created a jam in the first inning with an errant pickoff throw that allowed Ezequiel Carrera to advance from first to third.
“Just a bad throw, just spiked it right into the ground,” Gausman said.
“That’s kind of the way my whole start went, just back up against the wall and trying to pitch out of jams,” he added.
Gausman began the season on the disabled list with a sore right shoulder and made his first start on April 25 at Tampa Bay. He is 0-3 and has not won since Sept. 30 last year against Toronto.
Gausman was long gone by the time Encarnacion snapped a zero-for-19 slump with an opposite field shot off Brad Brach (5-1) to begin the 10th.
“They’d been throwing to me outside all day, so I just tried to make an adjustment and it worked,” Encarnacion said.
Brach lost for the first time since Sept. 28 last year, also against Toronto. He gave Encarnacion credit for hitting a good pitch.
“Down and away, and maybe up just a tad, but slightly off the plate and he put a good swing on it,” Brach said.
It was the fifth walkoff homer of Encarnacion’s career.
“He’s a feared guy,” Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said.
Drew Storen (1-2) pitched one inning for the victory.
Chris Davis hit a two-run homer and Jonathan Schoop added a solo blast for the Orioles, who came in tied with Seattle for the major league lead with 89 home runs.
“We didn’t do a whole lot other than a couple of home runs,” Orioles manager Buck Showalter said.
Blue Jays right-hander Marco Estrada held the Orioles without a hit for the first four innings after taking a no-hitter into the eighth inning against Boston in his previous start.
Estrada lost his no-hit bid at Fenway on a home run and suffered the same fate in this one when Schoop drilled a one-out homer in the fifth, connecting on an 0-2 pitch.
Estrada allowed three runs and four hits in six innings.
Baltimore led 3-2 after Davis homered in the top of the sixth, but Toronto tied it in the bottom half when Russell Martin hit an RBI single off the glove of diving shortstop Manny Machado.
“When you get the lead, you’re supposed to shut the door, especially that next inning,” Gausman said. “That was what I was most upset about.”
Davis has 15 home runs in 42 career games in Toronto. He has hit 33 homers against the Blue Jays since 2008, more than any other opponent.
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