Jose Bautista, right, is congratulated by Blue Jays teammate Josh Donaldson after hitting a solo homer in the first inning against the Baltimore Orioles on Friday night.Tom Szczerbowski/Getty Images
Outside forces have been hyping the weekend series in Toronto against the Baltimore Orioles as the biggest confrontation of the season for the Blue Jays.
The people who run Rogers Centre even orchestrated a fan fest in the square before Friday night's hostilities with Tokyo Police Club, an indie outfit from Newmarket, Ont., providing the entertainment.
Now if that won't help escalate baseball fever with about two months left in the regular-season and 50-odd games left to play, nothing will.
The Blue Jays had an off day on Thursday to prepare for the showdown against Baltimore, with first-place in late July in the American League East hanging in the balance. Toronto went into three-game set training the front-running O's by 11/2-games.
Jose Bautista, Toronto's star right fielder, got into the spirit of things by staging his celebrity golf tournament on the day off, which featured several of his teammates.
After prying himself away from advance scouting reports on the Orioles, Toronto manager John Gibbons took in a movie on his free day – Jason Bourne.
The manager gave it two thumbs up, although he cast a critical eye on some of the action scenes.
"There's some car chases in that show that might be a little bit too much Hollywood," Gibbons opined, conjuring his best Roger Ebert.
You could have staged one of those car chases in the Toronto clubhouse a couple of hours before first pitch it was so barren of action.
The only person who would have been at risk was relief pitcher Joe Biagini, who was already in danger of being swallowed whole by the couch he was reclining on, absently watching TV.
Gibbons at least tried to muster up some enthusiasm for the pending clash of the titans, allowing that it was an important matchup.
"I think any time you play the guys your chasing, yeah, and we've always had good battles with these guys," he said. "We're down to the final two months."
The pregame breeziness quickly dissipated once the teams took to the field, however, where the Blue Jays endured for 6-5 victory in a game that provided solid, often goofy, entertainment for an amped-up gathering of just over 46,100.
"That was really a typical Baltimore-Toronto type game over the last couple of years," Gibbons said once it was all said and done. "Two teams that just really slug it out."
The Orioles got the early jump on Toronto starter Marco Estrada with a Mark Trumbo double scoring two runners that made the score 2-0.
Although it was tough slogging at time, Estrada hung around for six innings, allowing four Baltimore runs (three earned) of five hits while striking out six to earn the win and improve to 6-4.
The Blue Jays responded with a vengeance in their half of the first, clouting three home runs off Baltimore starter Kevin Gausman, starting with a leadoff homer by Bautista.
The homer was Bautista's 13th of the season but first in the four games he has been back after missing five weeks with turf toe.
Edwin Encarnacion (No. 28) and Troy Tulowitzki (17) followed in kind and the Blue Jays had themselves a demonstrative 3-2 lead.
Tulowitzki was celebrating his one-year anniversary playing for the Blue Jays, having homered in his July 29 debut last year in a game against Philadelphia.
After second baseman Darwin Barney flashed some great leather in the second inning for Toronto, shovelling a slow ground ball off the bat of Adam Jones with his glove to get the out at first, Baltimore managed to draw even off an odd play in the third.
With Manny Machado stationed at first base with a walk, Toronto third baseman Josh Donaldson shifted over to the right side to defend against lefty hitter Chris Davis at the plate.
Davis stroked a slow roller to Donaldson, whose only option was to take the out at first.
Rounding the bag at second, Machado alertly noticed that nobody was home at third so he kept going.
Toronto catcher Russell Martin, noting the oversight, lumbered up the line to try to cover the bag, but could not handle the relay from Justin Smoak and the ball squirted past him for an error.
Machado was able to continue on home to knot the score at 3-3.
Baltimore returned the favour in the third when a two-base throwing error by catcher Matt Wieters opened the door for a three-run outburst by the Jays, who reclaimed a lead of 6-3.
Tulowitzki was credited with driving in one of the runs, his second of the game, on a ground out to second.
A ground out by J.J. Hardy in the fourth cashed Jonathan Schoop from third to cut Toronto's margin to two.
And the Machado brought it to one, greeting Toronto reliever Jason Grilli with a home run shot to right on the first pitch Grilli unloaded.
Roberto Osuna came on in the ninth to record his 22nd save.