Toronto Blue Jays' Josh Donaldson celebrates a solo home run during third inning MLB baseball action against the Detroit Tigers in Toronto on Friday, August 28, 2015.Darren Calabrese/The Canadian Press
The capacity crowd at Rogers Centre chanted "MVP, MVP" when Josh Donaldson went long in the third inning.
They broke into song in praise of Jose Bautista when he did the same in the fifth.
September is just around the corner and playoff fever is already gripping Toronto's baseball fans that warmly welcomed the Blue Jays back to town on Friday night.
And the Blue Jays (72-56) rewarded that loyalty, pounding out a 5-3 win over the Detroit Tigers (60-68) in the first of a three-game weekend series.
"You can just sense from the first inning on, the noise level, it's not always like that," Jays manager John Gibbons said of the boisterous fan support the team has enjoyed of late.
"It does wonders when there's a little roar in the crowd instead of just silence. That's big."
It was Toronto's first game since returning from a 6-2 road trip in which the team regained top spot in the American League East.
And the bats were booming, with Edwin Encarnacion doubling home Bautista in the first inning to extend his hit steak to 23-games, the longest in Major League Baseball this season.
With the score now tied at 1-1, Troy Tulowitzki (No. 16) and Donaldson (35) then stroked back-to-back home runs in the third to put the Blue Jays in flight.
Donaldson's laser hit the facing of the fifth deck in left, extending his MLB-leading runs-batted-in total to 102.
Bautista (31) added his mark in the fifth that put Toronto up 5-1 and helped starter R.A. Dickey improve his record to 9-10 on the year.
Dickey went 6.2-innings, allowing three Detroit runs off six hits.
"I felt like I was on a pretty good roll there in the middle of the game," said Dickey, who gave up a first inning home run to Ian Kinsler before settling into his work. "I was able to get our team back in the dugout quickly after we scored runs, which is always big."
Detroit showed a bit of life in the seventh when former Blue Jay Anthony Gose, hitting ninth in the Tigers batting lineup, stroked a line drive home run to right.
It was a two-run shot that trimmed Toronto's lead to 5-3 and spelled the end of the night for Dickey.
The Toronto bullpen was airtight after that with a mixture of Mark Lowe, Aaron Sanchez and then Roberto Osuna, who came on in the ninth to record his 16th save.
Sanchez entered the game in the eighth and cleanly did away with Kinsler, Miguel Cabrera and Victor Martinez, only the meat of the Detroit batting order.
Osuna was electric in the ninth, striking out the side as the crowd roared its approval.
"I always like watching relievers coming in after me because the offence has seen so many knuckleballs all night long," Dickey said. "When you've got guys out there throwing like they are , 95-96 [miles an hour], it just compounds the velocity that they're tracking because it's so much of a difference.
"It's been a pleasure to watch those guys perform all year."
After the game, the Blue Jays optioned catcher Josh Thole to the minor leagues to make room for Drew Hutchison, who is coming back from Triple-A to start against the Tigers on Saturday.