Kikuchi given standing ovation in what could be final Blue Jays start

Yusei Kikuchi may have made his final start for the Toronto Blue Jays in last night’s walk-off 6-5 win over the Texas Rangers.

Kikuchi, a pending free agent, is one of several Blue Jays expected to be moved ahead of the July 30 trade deadline.

The 33-year-old, who has been in a bit of a funk lately, was far from great last night, allowing five earned runs through just 4.2 innings. Despite the less-than-stellar start, however, fans at Rogers Centre made sure to give him a standing ovation as he exited the mound. It seemed to resonate well with Kikuchi, who responded with a hat tip to the Blue Jays faithful.

Perhaps uniting as a team in what they know is likely Kikuchi’s final start, the bull pen was able to shut the Rangers out the rest of the way, and in the bottom of the ninth, Ernie Clement delivered.

“I thought he pitched better today than what his line was,” manager John Schneider said regarding Kikuchi afterward. “It’s kind of a wall scraper home run, and seven singles just found holes or whatever it was. I thought he did a really good job over the past couple weeks of kind of just corralling everything and focusing on what he had to do.

“What people don’t realize and what they don’t see is how he prepares and how well he takes care of himself in between. I thought today was a really good outing for him. Would’ve been easy to let him finish the fifth, but I wanted the fans to recognize him a little bit too.”

Though Schneider mentioned nothing is set in stone regarding a trade, it feels likely, given the Jays’ current standings. They already got things going yesterday by trading reliever Yimi Garcia to the Seattle Mariners and probably aren’t done just yet.

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