(Story by Marco Stoovelaar; Photos by Henk Seppen)
  Rangers win 14-innining marathon to take 2-0 lead in ALDS vs. Toronto
Nederlands
 TORONTO, Ontario (Canada) -
The Texas Rangers took a 2-0 lead in the best-of-five American League Division Series vs. the Toronto Blue Jays on Friday (October 9).
The Rangers won 6-4 in a four hour, 57 minute, 14-inning, action-packed marathon in a noisy Rogers Centre in Toronto, filled with almost 50,000 spectators.
There, the thousands of Blue Jays-fans waved with their familiar white towels, bringing back memories of the 1992 and 1993 World Series.
The Blue Jays won both World Series.
In 1993, it ended with a memorable 3-run, walk-off homerun in the sixth game by Joe Carter that gave Toronto its second consecutive title.
It also was the last time that Toronto played in a postseason.
When the Blue Jays took a 4-3 lead this afternoon in the fifth inning, it marked the first time in the five games played so far in the postseason that a home team was leading.
The last time that a home team didn't held a lead in the first four games of a postseason was in 1906 (!) during the World Series between the Chicago Cubs and Chicago White Sox.
The last time that a home team didn't win in the first four games of a postseason was in 1970.
On Thursday, the Rangers won the first game 5-3.
Game Three will be played on Sunday in Arlington (Texas).
Later today, the Kansas City Royals and Houston Astros also played their second game in the ALDS.
In the evening, the two National League Division Series went underway.
The Rangers today played without Adrian Beltre.
The All Star third baseman injured his back in the first game on Thursday, while breaking up a double play in the first inning.
Beltre then stayed in the game, but left after having hit a single in the third at bat.
Today, he was replaced at third base by Hanser Alberto, who played only eight innings defensively in the regular season in the month of September.
The Dominican also replaced Beltre on Thursday and then played the last seven innings of the game.
Josh Donaldson, the All Star third baseman of the Blue Jays, and rightfielder José Bautista both played today.
Donaldson was hit in the head by the knee of second baseman Rougned Odor in the fourth inning on Thursday while trying to break up a double play.
Donaldson left out of precaution in the fifth and later passed concussion tests.
More tests were done this morning.
Bautista left in the ninth inning on Thursday with a cramp in his right hamstring.
...Andruw Jones youngest player to hit postseason-HR...
...On the photo he is with the Netherlands National Team...
...during the 2013 World Baseball Classic...
(© Photo: Henk Seppen) |
Rougned Odor homered in his first-ever postseason game on Thursday.
With his age of 21 years and 247 days, the Venezuelan became the ninth youngest player (and youngest second baseman) in history to hit a homerun in his first postseason.
The youngest player to have hit a homerun in his first postseason was Andruw Jones.
The 'Kid from Curaçao' and later player of the Netherlands National Team was 19 years and 177 days when he homered in the seventh game of the National League Championship Series for the Atlanta Braves vs. St. Louis Cardinals.
Back then, Jones broke the record held by legendary Mickey Mantle, who was 20 years and 352 days when he homered for the New York Yankees in the 1952 World Series vs. Brooklyn Dodgers.
Since Jones homered in 1996, three more players homered being younger than Mantle, being Miguel Cabrera (2003), Manny Machado (2012) and Bryce Harper (2012).
But Jones, who made his Major League-debut on August 15, 1996, remains the youngest ever.
A few days after his NLCS-homerun, Jones homered in his first two at bats of the 1996 World Series.
Odor became the third youngest player to hit a homerun in his first postseason-game.
The youngest is Jimmy Sebring, who was 21 years and 190 days when he homered for Pittsburgh Pirates in the first game of the first-ever World Series in 1903 vs. Boston Americans (now Red Sox) in a best-of-nine series.
This also was (of course) the first-ever World Series-homerun.
Texas struck early off of righthander Marcus Stroman, who was 4-0 this season.
During Spring Training, Stroman sustained a torn ligament in his left knee.
He recovered quicker than expected and made his comeback on the mound on September 12.
Stroman started four games, threw 27 innings, struckout 18 batters and registered four victories.
...Chris Colabello playing for Italy on the...
...European Championship 2012...
(© Photo: Henk Seppen) |
In the first inning, Delino DeShields led off with a double into rightfield.
There, José Bautista appeared to make a running catch, but lost the ball while running into the wall.
DeShields then scored when Shin-Soo Choo followed with a single.
Prince Fielder added another single to put runners on first and third base.
On a grounder towards first base by Mitch Moreland, Choo appeared to be eliminated in a rundown, but the Korean was able to score the second run for Texas when catcher Russell Martin made a throwing error.
Fielder and Moreland then advanced on a grounder by Elvis Andrus.
More damage was avoided when the Blue Jays ended the inning with a rare unassisted double play.
Josh Hamilton grounded out to first baseman Chris Colabello, who then ran towards the third base-line to tag out Fielder (who had left third base on the hit) and end the inning.
Chris Colabello was born in the USA, but grew up in Rimini (Italy).
His father Lou Colabello was a pitcher for the Italian National Team in the demonstration baseball-tournament on the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles (USA).
The Colabello-family moved back to the USA in 1991.
Chris Colabello made his Major League-debut in 2013 playing for the Minnesota Twins.
In 2013, he also played for the Italian National Team in the World Baseball Classic.
In 2012, Colabello won the European Championship-title with Italy, beating the Netherlands in the final of that event, which then took place in Rotterdam (Netherlands).
In the bottom of the first inning, Toronto got one run back when Josh Donaldson homered with one out off of lefthander Cole Hamels, who was 13-8 this season.
Texas added run in the second at bat.
Rougned Odor led off with a walk, then advanced to third base on a grounder by Chris Gimenez back to the pitcher.
Odor then scored on a sacrifice fly by Hanser Alberto.
In the bottom of the second inning, the Blue Jays came alongside.
Lead-off hitter Troy Tulowitzki reached on an error by third baseman Hanser Alberto, then Chris Colabello followed with a ground-rule double.
Next, Russel Martin singled to bring in Tulowitzki.
Moments later, Colabello scored the tying run on a double play-grounder by Kevin Pillar.
In the bottom of the fifth inning, Toronto took the lead for the first time.
Kevin Pillar led off with a double, which was a pop-up towards first base, then was brought to third base via a sacrifice bunt by Ryan Goins.
Pillar then gave Toronto a 4-3 lead by scoring on a single by Ben Revere.
In the meantime, Marcus Stroman recovered after the rough first two innings.
Starting with the sacrifice fly by Hanser Alberto in the second inning, Stroman retired 13 batters in a row.
He got his first baserunners again with two outs in the top os the sixth inning when Mitch Moreland walked and Elvis Andrus singled.
But hereafter, Stroman closed with a strikeout.
Stroman went on to retire 18 out of the last 20 batters through seven innings.
During that span, he was supported with some fine defensive plays by first baseman Chris Colabello, short stop Troy Tulowitzki and rightfielder José Bautista.
Stroman's afternoon on the mound ended in the top of the eighth inning.
After giving up a lead-off single to Delino DeShields, Stroman was replaced by Brett Cecil.
DeShields moved to second base on a sacrifice bunt by Shin-Soo Choo, then scored the tying run on a pinch-hit single by Mike Napoli.
As the game remained tied, it went into extra innings.
The Rangers got a scoring opportunity in the top of the eleventh inning off of reliever Mark Lowe, who walked Prince Fielder and Mike Napoli with one out.
After the latter was forced out on a grounder by Elvis Andrus, Aaron Loup took over the pitching.
The inning then ended with a flyout into deep centerfield by Josh Hamilton.
In the bottom of the 12th inning, the Blue Jays got a runner on third base with two outs off of reliever Shawn Tolleson.
Chris Colabello led off with a single, then was replaced by pinch-runner Dalton Pompey.
With two outs, Pompey first stole second base, then third base, but stranded when a grounder ended the at bat.
Tempers flared a bit in the bottom of the 13th inning.
With one out, Josh Donaldson drove the ball into deep leftfield, but it went foul.
Shortly thereafter, there was a brief exhange of words between Donaldson and pitcher Keone Kela, who had come on in relief at the start of the at bat.
The benches cleared, but order was restored quickly.
Donaldson struckout moments later, then José Bautista walked, but he was left behind when Edwin Encarnacion flied out to deep centerfield.
In the top of the 14th inning, the Rangers re-took the lead off of 42-year old reliever LaTroy Hawkins.
With two outs, Rougned Odor singled and advanced on a single by Chris Gimenez.
Odor overran second base and was tagged on the throw coming from rightfield.
It appeared that his foot was off the bag very briefly in a close play.
The Blue Jays challenged the play, but it was upheld and Odor was safe.
Moments later, Odor scored the go-ahead run on a single by Hanser Alberto, whose error earlier in the game enabled Toronto to come alongside.
Liam Hendriks was brought in to relief Hawkins, but he was greeted with a runscoring single by Delino DeShields that made it 6-4 in favor of the Rangers.
With his 42 years, Hawkins is the oldest player this season in the Major League, followed by Bartolo Colón (also 42, but 154 days younger) and Ichiro Suzuki (41).
Hawkins made his Major League-debut in 1995.
In his 21 years in the Majors, Hawkins played for 11 different teams.
(October 9)
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