Toronto Blue Jays vs Texas Rangers Game 1 ALDS HD

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• published: 07 Oct 2016
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Make Money Betting MLB : http://bit.ly/1LR1u48 It was a beatdown but this time the bad blood stayed under the surface. Toronto rocked Cole Hamels for five runs in the third inning and a near flawless Marco Estrada delivered 8 1/3 stellar innings as the Blue Jays thumped the Texas Rangers 10-1 Thursday to win Game 1 of the American League Division Series. Jose Bautista, Public Enemy No. 1 in Texas, slammed a three-run homer in the ninth inning off reliever Jake Diekman to rub salt in the wound. No bat-flip this time. He put his weapon down gently after the blast to left field, where the fan who caught the ball whipped it back into play. The Jays slugger was happy to keep the focus on baseball rather than rehash Toronto's recent Hatfield-and-McCoy-like feuding with the Rangers. "I wanted to avoid all the questions about the whole ordeal because we're baseball players, not UFC fighters, and we came here to play ballgames," Bautista said. "That's why I wanted everybody to kind of focus on that in our clubhouse. And we did and we played a pretty good game today and hopefully we continue to do that." It was Bautista's fourth home run in his last eight post-season at-bats. He is tied with Joe Carter for most playoff homers by a Blue Jay with six. Toronto came close to its first complete game of the season — and the first of Estrada's career. But Elvis Andrus tripled to open the bottom of the ninth and scored on a Shin-Soo Choo's groundout. Manager John Gibbons then brought in Ryan Tepera to close the door. "Two outs away from finishing it. Unfortunately I couldn't," said Estrada, who failed to convince Gibbons to keep him in. "But who cares, we won. That's all that matters." Estrada (1-0) gave up one run in 8 1/3 innings on four hits with six strikeouts in a 98-pitch performance with 72 strikes. He becomes the third Jay in playoff history to record a start of eight-plus innings while giving up one run or less (Dave Stieb, 1985, and David Cone, 1992). In contrast, Hamels allowed a playoff career-high seven runs in the shortest outing of the 2008 World Series MVP's post-season career. While Bautista relishes the big stage, Estrada says he treats it like any other game. "I don't change anything. I just think of it as another regular-season game. Why am I going to add extra pressure on myself?" Estrada is like baseball's answer to Canadiens goaltender Carey Price. Both are single-minded. "Essentially it comes down to the same thing — stopping pucks," Price said in Sochi during the Winter Olympics. Estrada can relate. "Basically I just try to pound the zone. I look at Russ's glove and I try to hit it as many times as possible," he said, referencing catcher Russell Martin. Gibbons, meanwhile, savoured a game where the drama came early not late. "In reality we were due to break out … Can't say we necessarily relaxed, but it was kind of nice to have a game where you have a little breathing room, because we haven't had too many of those lately." Toronto's performance had many rushing to the record books. ESPN Stats says the Jays are just the third team in post-season history to win Game 1 of a best-of-five series by at least nine runs on the road (joining the 2002 Cardinals and 2011 Rays). It also notes that teams up 1-0 in a best-of-five MLB post-season series win the series 70 per cent of the time, although it didn't work for Texas last year against Toronto. It was 32 degrees under the sun at first pitch before a sellout crowd of 47,434 that had little to cheer about at Globe Life Park. The Jays sent nine men to the plate in the third, scoring all five runs — all with two outs. Troy Tulowitzki did the bulk of the damage with a three-run triple. Melvin Upton Jr. hit a solo homer in a two-run fourth for Toronto. Josh Donaldson, who had two singles, two doubles and a walk on the day, drove in a run in each of the third and fourth. His four hits tied a club post-season mark. While Hamels (0-1) wobbled in 3 1/3 innings, Estrada was rock-steady, retiring 15 of the first 16 batters he faced. The only Ranger to get on during that stretch was Adrian Beltre, on a second-inning infield hit that saw first baseman Edwin Encarnacion make the play only to find no one was covering first. Estrada retired 12 straight after Beltre before Andrus singled to open the Texas half of the sixth. Andrus was promptly caught stealing as Choo struck out — it was that kind of day for the Rangers. The 33-year-old right-hander faced just one batter over the minimum over eight innings, helping ease the load of a Toronto bullpen that was looking to rest closer Roberto Osuna and his sore shoulder. Toronto outhit Texas 13-4. Thursday's game marked the first meeting of the teams since a wild game on May 15 in Texas. Baseball gave way to payback as Bautista was hit by a pitch and then clocked in the fa Twitter: http://bit.ly/1S4yYBj Facebook: http://on.fb.me/1i6EyX0 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_knockouts2sleep.com_/