Blue Jays 8, Orioles 1: Three Straight Homers, Then Springer's Double

Twelve straight strikes, then three straight homers

September 13, 2026 - Toronto - Dylan Cease loaded the bases in the first and threw 12 consecutive strikes to get out of it. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. later hit his first homer at Rogers Centre this season, the Associated Press recap said, and came out for a curtain call. The Toronto Blue Jays beat the Baltimore Orioles 8-1.

Partly cloudy, 78 degrees. First pitch 1:38 p.m. Attendance 41,805. The game lasted 2 hours, 50 minutes. The fifth inning went back-to-back-to-back. The eighth added a bases-clearing double. In between, Cease struck out nine and left with a lead he had earned the hard way.

The Blue Jays are 75-75. The AP recap said they began the day one game behind Cleveland for the last AL wild card. Baltimore is 72-78 and entered three games back of that same spot.

Cease's 228th, then the AL strikeout lead

Cease (11-5) went five: four hits, one run, five walks, nine strikeouts, 94 pitches. The AP recap said he is 5-1 with a 2.12 ERA in 11 starts since the All-Star break. It also said the first of those nine strikeouts, Coby Mayo looking at a 3-0 count that turned into a punchout, was Cease's 228th of the year, beating the season-high he set with the White Sox in 2022. He finished the afternoon at 236, reclaiming the AL lead from Cleveland's Gavin Williams (228) and matching Milwaukee's Jacob Misiorowski for the majors' lead.

The first inning was the test. Two walks and a single loaded the bases. Cease fell behind 3-0 to Mayo, then threw 12 straight strikes. Mayo. Samuel Basallo. Christian Encarnacion-Strand. Three strikeouts. Zero runs. Rogers Centre had a 0-0 game that already felt like Cease's.

Andrés Giménez doubled Charles McAdoo home in the second, a popup that deflected off Encarnacion-Strand. 1-0. Trevor Rogers (10-10) kept it there through four. He had thrown 95 pitches by the time the fifth ended, and the fifth is the inning that ended him as a competitive start.

Springer, Guerrero, Okamoto, and a first homer at home

Dylan Beavers scored on Pete Alonso's single in the fifth. 1-1. Alonso went 3-for-5 with the RBI. That was Baltimore's entire afternoon on the scoreboard. Nine hits, 13 left on, one run.

Toronto answered before Rogers could sit down. George Springer homered to right-center, his 15th. Guerrero homered to left, his ninth, a 350-foot drive the AP recap called his first at home this season, in Toronto's 75th home game. Kazuma Okamoto homered to left, his 32nd. 4-1. Back-to-back-to-back. The AP recap said Okamoto's homer gave him 85 RBI and passed Eric Hinske's 2002 Blue Jays rookie record. Guerrero came out for the curtain call. Rogers left with seven hits, four runs, three homers, one walk, five strikeouts.

Yaramil Hiraldo walked four in 1 2/3 innings in the eighth. Nathan Lukes scored on a Brett Bateman walk. Springer then doubled to center, Brandon Valenzuela, Myles Straw, and Bateman scoring. 8-1. Four RBI for Springer. Four hits for Guerrero, a homer and a double among them. That is an 8-1 that started with 12 straight strikes and ended with a bases-clearing double.

Guerrero finished 4-for-5. Springer went 2-for-5 with four RBI. Okamoto went 1-for-3 with a walk. Giménez doubled in the first run. McAdoo singled, stole a base, and scored. Valenzuela singled, stole a base, and scored in the eighth. Toronto left seven on and still scored eight. Baltimore stranded 13. Gunnar Henderson walked three times and still watched the game from first a lot. Beavers had two hits and the run Alonso drove in. Leody Taveras, Encarnacion-Strand, and Mayo each had a hit that died on the bases. Nine hits, one run is an afternoon that looks busy in the hit column and empty on the scoreboard.

A .500 club in a wild-card race, and Detroit next

Mason Fluharty, Braydon Fisher, Tyler Rogers, Ricky Tiedemann, and Michael Lorenzen finished four innings after Cease. One hit here, two there, no runs. Lorenzen threw the ninth with the game already decided. Baltimore put nine hits on the board and turned one of them into a run. That is the visitor's box score in a sentence.

Monday is José Soriano (12-7, 3.48) against Detroit's Troy Melton (8-4, 2.42), the AP recap said. The Orioles go to New York, Brandon Young (9-4, 3.71) against Mets right-hander Jonah Tong (2-1, 4.80). Toronto is 75-75 and still in the wild-card picture. An 8-1 with three straight homers is how a .500 club keeps the math honest.

AthX Engine after the baseball

AthX Engine (our projection and scoring system) put Cease at 15 pitching fantasy points. Springer led Toronto hitters at 10. Guerrero had 9. Okamoto had 7. The Blue Jays finished with 18 team FP, tied for third on Sunday. Baltimore finished at minus-7.

Fantasy points measure the night under platform scoring rules. Share prices also move with traders through dynamic pricing. They are related. They are not the same number.

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*Sources: ESPN recap and box score, MLB.com Gameday wrap, MLB.com schedule, and AthX Engine scoring. Information only; not financial advice.*