TORONTO – \u00a0<\/p>\n
George Springer, Jesus Sanchez and Kazuma Okamoto hit homers and Eric Lauer had nine strikeouts as the Toronto Blue Jays defeated the Athletics 5-2 on Sunday to complete a three-game series sweep. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Springer turned on the first pitch Luis Morales (0-1) threw for his 64th career leadoff home run. Sanchez added a two-run shot in the third inning and Okamoto added a solo blast in the fourth.<\/p>\n
Lauer (1-0) struck out the side in the opening frame. He allowed three hits, two earned runs and a walk over 5 1\/3 innings.<\/p>\n
The left-hander didn’t allow a baserunner until Nick Kurtz drew a one-out walk in the fourth. Jacob Wilson led off the fifth inning with a double for the Athletics’ first hit and scored on a home run by Max Muncy.<\/p>\n
Toronto answered in the bottom half when Addison Barger walked with the bases loaded to plate Tyler Heineman.<\/p>\n
Braydon Fisher, Tommy Nance, Mason Fluharty and Jeff Hoffman worked in relief for the Blue Jays in front of 36,484 spectators at Rogers Centre.<\/p>\n
It was Hoffman’s first save. The Blue Jays outhit the Athletics 6-5.<\/p>\n
TAKEAWAYS<\/p>\n
Blue Jays: Toronto pitchers set a franchise record by recording 50 strikeouts in the series. The previous high of 45 for a three-game set was set April 28-30, 2023 against the Seattle Mariners.<\/p>\n
Athletics: Shea Langeliers cooled off Sunday after torching the Blue Jays for three homers over the first two games. He had a single and two strikeouts.<\/p>\n
KEY MOMENT<\/p>\n
Springer set the tone with his rainbow blast that travelled 362 feet over the wall in left field.<\/p>\n
KEY STAT<\/p>\n
The Blue Jays swept 11 series last season. Only the Seattle Mariners and Milwaukee Brewers (with 12) had more.<\/p>\n
COMING UP<\/p>\n
The Blue Jays will continue their six-game homestand Monday against the Colorado Rockies.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Toronto’s Cody Ponce is scheduled to start against fellow right-hander Tomoyuki Sugano in the season debut for both pitchers.<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 29, 2026.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO – \u00a0 George Springer, Jesus Sanchez and Kazuma Okamoto hit homers and Eric Lauer had nine strikeouts…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":651212,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2288],"tags":[2309,5,2316,2313,2325,1497,311,2335,380,19,2310,2328,2304,2318,2308,2319,4,2305,2303,63,2307,2327,2321,185,2350,2311,70,2312],"class_list":{"0":"post-651211","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb-postseason","8":"tag-ball-and-bat-games","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-baseball-competitions","11":"tag-baseball-playoffs-and-champions","12":"tag-baseball-teams","13":"tag-eric-lauer","14":"tag-george-springer","15":"tag-home-run","16":"tag-jeff-hoffman","17":"tag-major-league-baseball","18":"tag-major-league-baseball-competitions","19":"tag-major-league-baseball-playoffs","20":"tag-major-league-baseball-postseason","21":"tag-major-league-baseball-seasons","22":"tag-major-league-baseball-teams","23":"tag-major-league-baseball-teams-seasons","24":"tag-mlb","25":"tag-mlb-playoffs","26":"tag-mlb-postseason","27":"tag-oakland-athletics","28":"tag-outdoor-sports","29":"tag-seasons-in-american-sport","30":"tag-seasons-in-baseball","31":"tag-sports","32":"tag-strikeout","33":"tag-team-sports","34":"tag-toronto-blue-jays","35":"tag-turf-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=651211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651211\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/651212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=651211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=651211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=651211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}