{"id":149846,"date":"2025-08-16T06:42:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-16T06:42:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/149846\/"},"modified":"2025-08-16T06:42:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T06:42:13","slug":"kirks-heroics-lift-blue-jays-past-rangers-6-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/149846\/","title":{"rendered":"Kirk\u2019s heroics lift Blue Jays past Rangers 6-5"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\tDescrease article font size<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\tIncrease article font size<\/p>\n<p>TORONTO \u2013 Alejandro Kirk followed a two-run homer in the seventh inning with a game-winning two-run single in the eighth to push the Toronto Blue Jays to a 6-5 comeback win in the series opener against the Texas Rangers on Friday.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/70c8fc80.png\" alt=\"\" style=\"position:absolute;width:1px;height:1px\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Kirk\u2019s single with the bases loaded allowed the Blue Jays (72-51) to overcome a three-run deficit. Before Kirk\u2019s deciding at-bat, Texas reliever Phil Matton (2-5) walked Daulton Varsho with the bases loaded to pull the home team within two runs before 42,260 at Rogers Centre.<\/p>\n<p>Kirk and Rangers infielder Marcus Semien traded two-run homers in the bottom of the seventh and top of the eighth.<\/p>\n<p>Reliever Louis Varland (4-3) registered the win with Jeff Hoffman notching his 28th save.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\tRelated Videos\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"c-video__image\" alt=\"Click to play video: '\u2018Risk-reward could be huge:\u2019 Fans react to Blue Jays acquiring Bieber, Dominguez'\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1755326531_424_RAFAT_PKG_WEB_PIC.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\"   data-\/><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t1:59<br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\u2018Risk-reward could be huge:\u2019 Fans react to Blue Jays acquiring Bieber, Dominguez\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\tPrevious Video<\/p>\n<p>\t\tNext Video<\/p>\n<p>Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Jacob deGrom pitched five shutout innings, allowing only two hits with no walks and five strikeouts as the Rangers\u2019 (61-62) losing streak was extended to three games.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" width=\"170\" height=\"225\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/national.jpg\" alt=\"Get the day's top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day.\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\tGet daily National news<\/p>\n<p>Get the day&#8217;s top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day.<\/p>\n<p>Kyle Higashioka hammered a three-run homer in the second inning.<\/p>\n<p>The three-run blow was one of only four hits off Toronto starter Chris Bassitt, who lasted five innings on 100 pitches and matched a season-high four walks with four strikeouts.<\/p>\n<p>Blue Jays right fielder Nathan Lukes made a pair of defensive gems early. With his back against the wall, he jumped to take an extra base hit away from Joc Pederson in the first inning.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\tMore on Sports<br \/>\n\t\t\tMore videos\n\t\t<\/p>\n<p>In the second inning, Lukes fielded Evan Carter\u2019s rocket off the wall and caught the Rangers outfielder at second.<\/p>\n<p>Takeaways<\/p>\n<p>Rangers: They began the day 3 1\/2 games back of the final American League wild-card spot.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\tTrending Now\n\t<\/p>\n<ul class=\"l-inlineStories__posts c-posts c-posts--inline \">\n<li class=\"c-posts__item\">\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/news\/11334870\/air-canada-cancelling-flights-before-strike\/\" class=\"c-posts__inner\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"c-posts__thumbnail\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1755326533_513_Air-Canada-Flight-Attendants-Aug.-14.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"336\" height=\"224\" alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\tWhy is Air Canada cancelling flights before a strike actually happens?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<li class=\"c-posts__item\">\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/news\/11335614\/pete-hoekstra-donald-trump-tariffs-canada-retaliation-cusma\/\" class=\"c-posts__inner\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"c-posts__thumbnail\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1755326533_599_mark-carney-donald-trump-tariffs_133719.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"336\" height=\"224\" alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\tCanada\u2019s counter-tariffs \u2018pulled the rug out from\u2019 CUSMA, U.S. envoy says\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Blue Jays: George Springer homered in the second of his three at-bats in his rehab start for triple-A Buffalo on Friday. Shane Bieber pitched seven shutout innings in Buffalo, striking out four with six hits and no walks on 90 pitches. Springer is expected to rejoin Toronto on Saturday, and Bieber could make his Blue Jays debut next week.<\/p>\n<p>Key Moment<\/p>\n<p>Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Kirk\u2019s bases-loaded single in the eighth inning scored the tying and go-ahead runs.<\/p>\n<p>Key Stat<\/p>\n<p>Bassitt still hasn\u2019t suffered a loss at home in 2025, going 8-0 with six no decisions.<\/p>\n<p>Up Next<\/p>\n<p>Lefty Eric Lauer (7-2) will face Texas southpaw Patrick Corbin (6-8) in the middle outing of the three-game set on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 15, 2025.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t&amp;copy 2025 The Canadian Press\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Descrease article font size Increase article font size TORONTO \u2013 Alejandro Kirk followed a two-run homer in the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":149847,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[591,22896,26245,1266,62,1290,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-149846","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-blue-jays","10":"tag-blue-jays-baseball","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-toronto-blue-jays","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115037087135013165","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}