Blue Jays escape embarrassing defeat, eke past the Orioles in extra innings

The Toronto Blue Jays don’t have much to be thankful for this odorous season.

There’s been the solid play of starter J.A. Happ, fresh off his first career save at Tuesday’s All-Star Game.

In a pinch you could get misty-eyed about the mostly solid play of outfielder Teoscar Hernandez and the surprising thump in the bat of Yangervis Solarte, subbing in for the injured Josh Donaldson at third base.

After that, the pickings are slender – unless you want to add the Baltimore Orioles to the list.

As bad as the Blue Jays have been, the Orioles – who played the first of a three-game series against Toronto at Rogers Centre on Friday night – have been worse.

And they’ve just traded away their best player in Manny Machado.

Returning to the field for the first time after the all-star break, to begin the unofficial second half of the season, the Blue Jays were hoping the Baltimore beatdown they’ve enjoyed this season would continue.

The Blue Jays had won five of six off Baltimore, outscoring them 39-18 before Friday’s game.

And the trend continued.

After blowing a late three-run lead, the Blue Jays (44-52) regrouped to earn an 8-7 victory over the Orioles (28-70) with Aledmys Diaz providing the heroics for the 31,000 or so fans on hand.

Diaz stroked his fourth hit in the bottom of the 10th inning, a walk-off single that just squeezed through the left side of the Baltimore infield that brought home Russell Martin from second for an 8-7 Toronto win.

The Blue Jays led 7-4 heading into the top of the ninth inning before Tyler Clippard was brought in to lock down the game.

Instead, Clippard was rocked for three runs off three hits – two of them home runs by Caleb Joseph and then Jonathan Schoop, which knotted the score 7-7.

The Blue Jays also played some long ball with home runs by Diaz, Martin and Randal Grichuk behind a solid start from Sam Gaviglio.

Gaviglio allowed four runs and seven hits. He struck out eight batters, six of them looking. The strikeouts and innings pitched represented career highs for the 28-year-old.

The Blue Jays began Friday in fourth place in the American League East and needing a spyglass to catch a glimpse of the front-running Boston Red Sox, a mere 23 1/2 games ahead.

Toronto manager John Gibbons was asked beforehand what immediate improvement he would like to see from his team as the dog days of summer start to take hold.

“I think we’ve got to play better defence,” Gibbons responded. “There’s times we do, but I think it really stood out in that last series we played in Boston.

“I thought we could have won two or three of those games if we played solid defence, and we didn’t.”

That’s an understatement. Last weekend in Boston, Toronto committed eight errors, losing the four-game series 3-1.