Edwin Encarnacion homers twice, Jays win in Cincinnati after allowing eight runs in second inning.
CINCINNATI—First-place teams are not supposed to fall behind 8-0 in the second inning.
But first-place teams do respond, and the Blue Jays responded to an inning from hell here in grand fashion Friday night.
Thanks to a pair of three-run homers from Edwin Encarnacion, and two homers from Brett Lawrie and Juan Francisco in the seventh, the Jays clawed back all the way against the Cincinnati Reds for a 14-9 win, one of the most miraculous comebacks in team history.
Those two homers in the seventh were followed by a RBI double from Dioner Navarro in the eighth. That erased a 9-4 deficit and wiped out that 8-0 disaster in the second.
Toronto won it in even more dramatic fashion in the ninth, with Erik Kratz lining a two-run RBI double off 100-m.p.h. throwing Aroldis Chapman for the go-ahead run.
But that wasn’t all. After the Jays had worked Chapman for 33 pitches — incredible on its own — Encarnacion came up against reliever Sam LeCure and belted his second three-run blast, giving him six RBIs on the night and upping his homer total to 23 on the season.
There was no way the Jays could get any lower, or higher, in one game, and there was no way anyone could have scripted this comeback.
Jays manager John Gibbons made some shrewd moves, getting pinch-hit RBIs from Adam Lind, the two-run homer from Francisco, and the game-winning hit from Kratz.
It was the second-biggest comeback in team history. On June 4, 1989 against the Red Sox, they erased a 10-0 deficit and went on to win 13-11 in 12 innings.
