TORONTO -- Justin Foscue made contact with a Patrick Corbin slider that caught too much of the middle of the plate, before uncharacteristically admiring its path as it sailed a Statcast-projected 389 feet for a two-run home run that quieted the sold out Rogers Centre crowd.
Before beginning his trot around the bases, Foscue pointed towards the Rangers’ dugout, saying, “I told you, I told you.”
“I told [Rangers pitcher Kumar] Rocker yesterday that I was gonna go deep today,” Foscue said postgame. “And today Seags [Corey Seager] was asking me what I had on my agenda in the gym. I was like, ‘I'm gonna get ready to hit a tank today.’ He's like, ‘All right.’ Just playing around with it, having fun, kind of just calling my shots. I felt good. I'm just being present with myself every day. I'm having a blast.”
Foscue’s homer gave the Rangers a five-run lead in the third inning, and Texas needed each and every one of those runs in the eventual 5-4 win over the Blue Jays.
The right-handed-hitting infielder, whose job it is to mash lefties, collected three RBIs off Corbin in the victory. Foscue owns a career .315/.415/.606 slash line with 34 home runs in 593 plate appearances in the Minor Leagues against southpaws.
And he’s continued to crush left-handed pitching since his callup to the Majors in May, batting .382/.462/.735 in 39 plate appearances against lefties this season.
“We thought he was going to hit lefties,” said Rangers manager Skip Schumaker. “That was why he got called up. In the offseason, that was part of the conversation. We were going to see what it looked like. He didn't get a lot of opportunities once he was here, because we had a run of [facing] righties, but credit to him, he has stayed fresh and sharp so when he does get these starts, he has been ready, and he's still locked in.”
Foscue knows what he’s here to do. He’s embraced it more than anybody.
“It's a blessing to be on a big league baseball team, no matter what role I'm in,” he said. “Playing against lefties, I'm just going to take ownership of that.”
It was because of Foscue and the offense that Nathan Eovaldi was gifted a three-run lead before he even stepped onto the mound.
And it was also because of the offense and Eovaldi that the Rangers were able to narrowly avoid a late-inning bullpen collapse.
Eovaldi put the Rangers in prime position with seven scoreless frames -- his first scoreless outing since he threw seven shutout innings in Houston on May 17 -- and the offense supplied a five-run cushion. But for the second day in a row, however, the bullpen bent, but didn’t completely break.
Rookie Robby Ahlstrom allowed a single and a walk and recorded just one out in the eighth inning. Then Jakob Junis, pitching on back-to-back days, allowed a RBI single to Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and a Kazuma Okamoto homer -- just Junis' second homer allowed this season -- to make it a one-run game.
Jacob Latz allowed a leadoff walk in the bottom of the ninth before securing his 16th save with three straight pop flies to end the night.
“Latz did a great job closing out the game,” Schumaker said. “I was kind of hoping not to use him tonight, but obviously the game told us that we had to. Just another great job from -- in my opinion -- our All-Star closer.”
Despite the close call at the end, the first seven and a half innings Friday night are exactly what the Rangers have been wanting, and needing, to see: crooked numbers, an early lead, a quality start. Those things typically lead to a big win.
“If you told me we were gonna get six and five runs the first two games, I'd have signed up for that,” Schumaker said. “They've been taking really good at-bats. Today, the offense did a really, really good job again of getting to their starter and then trying to get to their bullpen. I'm proud of the at-bats that our guys are putting together the last two games. Overall I feel like it was a really, really, really solid game.”