Walker still can’t pick up road victory
TORONTO – Despite showing some promising signs, Seattle’s Taijuan Walker couldn’t put an end to his stretch of poor results.
Edwin Encarnacion and Ryan Goins homered off Walker, Aaron Sanchez won for the first time in three starts and the Toronto Blue Jays beat the Mariners 8-2 on Sunday, avoiding a three-game sweep.
Seattle’s Kyle Seager homered for the second straight game, a solo shot in the second, but the Mariners were unable to complete what would have been their first sweep in Toronto since May 2001.
Walker (1-5) allowed four runs and six hits in 5 2/3 innings.
“I thought he competed well against the team that’s scored the most runs in the American League, in fact all of baseball,” manager Lloyd McClendon said.
Walker fell to 0-4 in six road starts, but lowered his road ERA from 10.71 to 9.79.
“I felt like my command was pretty good,” Walker said. “The two pitches I missed, they made it hurt.”
Walker, who is winless in five starts since beating Texas on April 27, has allowed four or more earned runs in five of his nine starts this season.
Walker held the Blue Jays without a hit through the first four innings, but Toronto came alive with four runs in the fifth.
Kevin Pillar led off the fifth with a bloop single and Goins followed with his first homer of the season.
Two outs later, Russell Martin walked and Encarnacion drilled a second-deck drive to left, his third home run in four games.
“We got him in the stretch, hit a homer and it just kept rolling from there,” Goins said.
Encarnacion has hit eight home runs in May. Toronto has six games remaining this month.
Sanchez (4-4) allowed two runs and seven hits in 6 2/3 innings to help Toronto win for just the third time in 12 games.
“He just gets better and better,” manager John Gibbons said of Sanchez. “You see it in every start.”
A rookie who pitched 24 games out of the bullpen last season, Sanchez said his comfort level is “tremendously different” now than it was at the beginning of the year.
“I’m still trying to figure some things out but it’s been flowing,” Sanchez said. “I’m just trying to run with it.”
Welington Castillo cut it to 4-2 with a sacrifice fly in the seventh, but Toronto answered with four in the bottom half against relievers Danny Farquhar and Joe Beimel.
Notes
Seattle’s Robinson Cano grounded into double plays in each of his first two at-bats. Cano finished 0 for 4 and is hitless in 12 at-bats. He’s 5 for 24 on the road trip. Cano started at DH to get a break from the artificial turf. Seattle is in the midst of six straight games on turf, the only six they’ll play all season. … OF Austin Jackson (right ankle) went 3 for 5 with a double and an RBI in Saturday’s rehab game with Triple-A Tacoma and is close to being activated, McClendon said. … LHP Roenis Elias (1-1, 2.76) seeks to win his second straight start as Seattle begins a three-game series at Tampa Bay. Elias had gone winless in four outings before beating Baltimore on May 20. RHP Jake Odorizzi (3-4, 2.43) starts for the Rays.