Somersaulting Blue Jays pull out all the stops in ‘crazy’ win

ST. LOUIS – Back in the day, Chris Coghlan probably would have simply crushed Yadier Molina on his way to the plate, dropping a shoulder while at full sprint and letting things play out as they may. More common in these times of regulated paths to home plate is an attempt by the baserunner to contort himself around the catcher somehow, some way. But the leap over Molina and ensuing somersault onto the plate to avoid a tag at home Coghlan dropped on the St. Louis Cardinals in the seventh inning Tuesday night?

Cap tip to you, Mr. Coghlan. Nobody thinks of that, let alone pulls it off. That’s some epic-GIF-inspiring base-running.

“It’s like I saw a unicorn,” said Marco Estrada.

 

Still, the Toronto Blue Jays needed a pinch-hit double by Marcus Stroman – that’s not a typo – off Miguel Socolovich in the 11th inning to ensure that unicorn didn’t go to waste. Stroman scored when shortstop Aledmys Diaz threw away a two-out Steve Pearce grounder, the Cardinals’ fourth error of the night, and Ryan Tepera then closed out a hard-fought 6-5 victory, stranding the tying run at second.

The word everyone was throwing around afterwards: Crazy.

“Just a crazy game. A great game. But a crazy game,” said manager John Gibbons. “Especially for what we’ve been through in the last couple of weeks, an emotional roller-coaster.”

Coghlan’s spectacular run came on a Kevin Pillar triple during a two-run outburst that opened up a 4-2 edge in that seventh, but like so many other Blue Jays leads in recent days, it didn’t make it through the bottom half of the inning. A pinch-hit two-run homer by Jose Martinez off Joe Biagini erased the margin and then after Jose Bautista delivered an RBI single in the ninth inning off old friend Brett Cecil, Dexter Fowler responded in kind off Roberto Osuna.

The Blue Jays improved to 6-14 with a third win in five games, one coming after they didn’t land in St. Louis until 6 a.m. local time after Monday night’s 2-1 loss to the Angels in Anaheim. Estrada flew ahead to be rested and kept the Cardinals on lock down for the most part, and a team that had good reason to feel exhausted grinded out one of its most heartening wins of the season.

“Especially after a long travel day, coming from the West Coast, to get a win in the first game here, I feel like that’s pretty big,” said Stroman, who laced a 1-2 changeup down the left-field line. “Hopefully it’s a huge momentum shift for us.”

The reaction in the dugout after he scored?

“It was like a little party in there. A lot of emotions going on. A lot of people say I shouldn’t show those emotions, but I’m going to continue to do it no matter what anybody says. Always,” he said, a shot at those criticizing him for his post-start celebration in Anaheim on Sunday. “But yeah, it’s my brothers out there, we got a huge win.”

Particularly so because the Blue Jays have routinely failed to record shutdown innings in the past few games. On Friday in Anaheim, they scored two in the top of the third only give back three in the bottom half, in the eighth they scored a pair to take a 5-4 lead which didn’t survive the next Angels at-bat and after a three-spot in the 13th, they surrendered a pair before locking down an 8-7 win.

On Saturday, they picked up a run in the first and then gave it right back in the bottom half, while Monday, they went up 1-0 in the fourth but again couldn’t hold the edge.