Rockies pitchers combine on a tidy 25-hitter as Blue Jays romp in Mile High opener

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One pitch into the evening and one could sense this was going to be a game the Blue Jays began to clear the stench of a recent stretch that saw them drop six of their previous eight.

Nathan Lukes lashed Tanner Gordon’s first offering to centre for a double and the hit parade was on — 25 in all, as the Jays pounded the Rockies 15-1 to maintain their three-game lead on the Boston Red Sox atop the AL East.

Monday night’s game was played at Coors Field in Denver, where no lead, even the most lopsided, is ever safe, as evidenced last Friday when the Rockies trailed the Pittsburgh Pirates 10-1 before storming back for a 17-16 walk-off win.

The Blue Jays, however, are not the Pirates. Some statistical tidbits to chew on:

♦ With one out in the third inning, the Jays, collectively, had already hit for the cycle.

♦ Through three innings, they had compiled 12 hits and nine runs, while striking out but once.

♦ By the fourth, every Toronto starter had recorded a hit. By the eighth, every Jays starter — except for Vlad Guerrero Jr., who went 1-for-5 — had a multi-hit game.

♦ By game’s end 11 different Jays batters had recorded a hit.

♦ Ernie Clement went 5-for-6 for his first career five-hit game while Lukes, Joey Loperfido and Bo Bichette had three hits apiece.

The 25-hit barrage did fall short of the team record of 29, set in July of 2022 in a 28-5 pasting of the Red Sox at Fenway Park.

The litany of hits, however, shouldn’t overshadow how well the Jays played defensively — especially in the outfield, where Daulton Varsho and Lukes made highlight-reel catches — and how starter Eric Lauer pitched. The lefty was his usual efficient self, allowing one run in six innings on seven hits and a walk. He struck out four.

The Jays needed a break in the schedule and were afforded one, facing the Rockies (30-82) in the opener of a three-game series, which will be viewed as successful only if a sweep is achieved.

The following are three takeaways on a night the Blue Jays hit three home runs — two by Bichette — and Varsho’s first since his recent return from the injured list, coming in a seven-run third inning

BO KNOWS HITTING

Bo Bichette’s dad, Dante, hit 201 of his career 274 homers when he suited up for the Rockies.

Bo isn’t as accomplished as his fatther when it comes to the long-ball, but he sure knows how to hit.

In Monday night’s series opener, Bichette DH’d out of the No. 2 hole after spending much of the recent time batting cleanup.

On the second pitch he saw, Bichette singled home Lukes for the game’s first run and his MLB-leading 140th hit of the season.

He did his dad proud by going deep the third inning, then homered again in he seventh, a three-run shot, to give him a career-high six runs and punch his batting average back to the .300 level, not too shabby for someone poised to enter free agency this winter.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

The thin air in the Mile High City generates all the attention, but the field at Coors Field is as spacious as any baseball venue in any league.

It’s why the hapless Rockies own the third best home batting average in the majors — behind only the Phillies and Blue Jays — and, far and away, the worst team ERA of 5.84.

No team has given up more first-inning runs than the Rockies, a dubious mark that increased to 104 for the season on Monday night when, three pitches in and they were already trailing 1-0.

Considering the chasm separating the 30-82 Rockies from the second-worst team is so severe — vis a vis runs surrendered in the first inning — that it begins to explain why Colorado’s record is what it is.

KIRK MAKES AMENDS

In his first game back from the seven-day concussion IL on Sunday back home against the Royals, Alejandro Kirk wasn’t his normally self, be it at the plate or behind it.

Kirk’s throwing error in the fateful 10th inning helped the Royals abuse the Jays pen in a 7-4 win. It was also Kirk who grounded into the game’s final out by stranding two runners on base.

In the first inning on Monday, Kirk had clearly left that bad inning behind. He singled in his first at-bat, then, in the home half of the first, picked off Hunter Goodman at first base after he’d reached base on a single.

Kirk’s two-out seventh-inning single was the 20th hit by the Jays on the night.

UP NEXT

In Tuesday’s second game of the series (8:40 p.m.), RHP Jose Berrios will attempt to keep the ball in the field of play having giving up 19 long-balls this season, including at least one in each of his past four starts … Colorado is expected to counter with an opener in right-hander Anthony Molina, who will be thrust into the role as Kyle Freeland gets pushed back to Wednesday as he continues to recover from an illness.