The Rogers Centre played host to a Friday night MLB showdown between the Oakland Athletics and the Toronto Blue Jays. The Athletics (74-60) are eight games above .500 on the road and trail Boston by 1.5 games in the race for the final AL Wild Card spot. On Thursday, Oakland DH Jed Lowrie hit a three-run blast during the first inning of an 8-6 road victory against Detroit.
Twenty-nine year old southpaw Sean Manaea (8-9 3.97 ERA) will head to the hill for Oakland in this contest. In his last start, Manaea was tagged for five runs in four plus innings during an 8-2 home loss versus New York.
The Toronto Blue Jays are seven games above .500 at home and trail Boston by 4.5 games for the final AL Wild Card spot. On Wednesday, OF Randall Grichuk broke an eighth inning tie with a sacrifice fly to lift Toronto to a 5-4 home victory versus Baltimore. Lourdes Gurriel Jr. added two hits and drove in a pair of runs for the Blue Jays (70-62).
Rookie right-hander Alek Manoah (5-2 3.15 ERA) will make his 15th career major league start. Toronto has won four of Manoah’s last five starts and he has allowed 13 earned runs over his last 27 innings of work.
