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Toronto Blue Jays third baseman Josh Donaldson celebrates as he crosses home plate after hitting a home run against Miami Marlins in the seventh inning at Rogers Centre.Dan Hamilton

It was one of those infrequent 12:37 p.m. (ET) weekday start times, meaning Rogers Centre was crammed with school children, many of them proudly wearing their school colours.

Wednesday's attendance was announced at 44,106, the Toronto Blue Jays' third-largest home crowd this season.

There was an incessant yammering, of excited youngsters on a day pass near the end of a long school year, throughout the game. When Toronto orchestrated a good play against the Miami Marlins, the squeals of delight would assault the ears.

And the Blue Jays were only too happy to turn on the power to help fuel the youthful enthusiasm. It seems that these days, they know no other way.

Scoring early and then piling on with the home run ball, the Blue Jays ran their ego-boosting, season-high win streak to eight games, sweeping aside the hapless Marlins 7-2.

The Blue Jays will see how their act plays on the road. A five-game trip begins Friday night in Boston against the Red Sox.

Toronto has not strung so many victories together since those heady days of last season when it won nine in a row, from May 20 to 28, to secure first place in the American League East, a perch it could not cling to.

It seems the Jays can do no wrong as this streak unfolds. Their record is now a game above .500 (31-30) for the first time since May 9.

With rookie starter Aaron Sanchez complaining of general soreness following his last outing on Saturday against Houston, the Blue Jays opted to skip his turn on the mound on Wednesday as a "precautionary" measure.

It is nothing more than that, assured Blue Jays pitching coach Pete Walker.

Walker is confident Sanchez (5-4, 3.55 earned-run average) will be ready to make his scheduled start Tuesday in New York against the Mets.

"We certainly need him to be in that rotation all year," Walker said. "It was a decision by the training staff and the coaching and Aaron and what's best for us right now."

In his place, the Blue Jays went with Scott Copeland, who was called up from their Triple-A affiliate in Buffalo to make his first major-league start.

Copeland has been around a bit. He is 27 and he hardly seemed a neophyte on the mound, allowing one Miami run off six hits over seven solid innings to earn his first major-league victory.

His reward afterward was a return to minor leagues, perhaps with a promissory note that he will be the first one up the next time the Blue Jays find themselves in a pitching jam.

"He was unbelievable," Toronto manager John Gibbons said of Copeland. "I don't know how you can do it any better than that.

"The organization's always liked him. I don't know how many ground balls he had [he had 12] but that's kind of who he is. I think he led all of minor-league baseball in ground balls last year. He's got late life in the zone and a nice little breaking ball he can just flip over the plate."

The Jays started fast, scoring two runs in the second inning off three hits.

Toronto tacked on three more in the fourth, starting with a two-run homer from Justin Smoak, who had doubled in his first at-bat, in the second inning. It was his fourth home run this season.

Smoak is seeing more regular at-bats since Jose Bautista's recent return to right field after recovering from a shoulder injury, and it is showing in his swing.

"It feels a lot better," said Smoak, who started at first base. "Eighty-eight [miles an hour] doesn't feel like a hundred any more."

Catcher Russell Martin followed Smoak to the plate and he tagged Miami starter Tom Koehler for his ninth homer of the year. The Jays led 5-0.

It marked the second time this season the Blue Jays have stroked back-to-back home runs.

And they turned the trick for a third time in the seventh inning when Jose Reyes (his second) and Josh Donaldson (his 17th) partnered to make the score 7-1.

The home run was the eighth for Donaldson in his past 14 games. He has reached base safely in 15 successive games.

The only blight on the afternoon involved Edwin Encarnacion, who had played in just one game since receiving a cortisone injection in his sore left shoulder on Saturday.

Encarnacion started as the designated hitter but was pulled for a pinch-hitter in the eighth after the shoulder flared up.

Encarnacion said it didn't feel as painful and is optimistic Thursday's day off will have him feeling better for Friday's game.

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