Blue Jays hit three homers to cruise past Rays

Kazuma Okamoto, Nathan Lukes and Daz Cameron homered, George Springer drove in two runs, and Shane Bieber pitched seven strong innings as the Toronto Blue Jays beat the Tampa Bay Rays 5-1 Thursday.

Lukes snapped a 1-1 tie with a homer to lead off the fifth. Cameron followed with a solo shot two batters later. Lukes also made a leaping catch in right field in the seventh inning.

Bieber (5-2) retired the first nine Rays batters before Chandler Simpson beat out an infield chopper and scored the Rays’ only run on Junior Caminero’s single. Bieber allowed four hits, walked none and struck out seven.

Okamoto, who also doubled, opened the scoring by leading off the second inning with his 26th home run of the season. He leads AL rookies in RBIs (74) and extra-base hits (44), and ranks second in homers. The 30-year-old set a Blue Jays’ franchise record with his 25th homer earlier in the week.

Three of the Jays’ six hits off Ian Seymour (9-4) were solo homers. They took two of the three games in their series with the American League East-leading Rays.

As of Thursday night, the Blue Jays (63-66) were a half-game out of a wild-card spot, as were the Texas Rangers (62-65).

Toronto shortstop Andrés Giménez, who stole two bases in the second inning, left following his fourth-inning groundout with right hamstring tightness. First base umpire John Libka also ejected Blue Jays assistant hitting coach Lou Iannotti in the seventh inning.

Tampa Bay, which entered Thursday with the most home victories (43) in MLB, has lost three consecutive series at Tropicana Field. The Rays finished their homestand just 2-5.

Up next

Toronto: Heads to New York for a three-game series with the Yankees.

Tampa Bay: Opens a weekend series in Baltimore with RHP Freddy Peralta (5-10, 5.27 ERA) on the mound. The Orioles will counter with LHP Trevor Rogers (8-8, 4.15).