'It felt really good': Wander, bats come to life in twin bill sweep

TORONTO -- Wander Franco kept his eyes on the ball all the way until it touched the left-field foul pole, when his sprint to first base turned into a triumphant stroll across the diamond.

“I thought maybe it was going to go foul,” said Franco, in Spanish, with a smile. “But hey, here we are.”

And the Rays love where they are.

Franco’s sixth-inning, opposite-field solo blast -- his first home run since April 26 -- highlighted a much-needed offensive spark in the Rays’ doubleheader sweep over the Blue Jays on Saturday at Rogers Centre.

It wasn’t the hardest-hit nor the longest ball of the day, one that saw multiple home runs from both Isaac Paredes and Francisco Mejía. But it was an important step forward in Franco’s way back to consistency.

“All players, and certainly Wander, are the same,” said Rays manager Kevin Cash after Tampa Bay’s 6-2 Game 1 win. “They want to see results. And he has looked good. Today, he drove the ball the other way. Yesterday he did that [too], so [there’s] a lot of life in his bat.”

There was life in every Rays bat across Saturday's twin bill.

An offense that has struggled to find its footing broke out for 27 combined hits, 17 runs and five homers, including one in each game from Paredes and two in Game 2 by Mejía.

“I’m really happy about it, honestly,” said Paredes of the Rays’ offensive performance. “We’ve been waiting for the bats to wake up for a while. And I think that now we’re getting hot and hope we can keep this going as a group.”

Franco kept his own momentum going with a single, a walk and a run scored in Game 2, as the Rays beat the Blue Jays 11-5.

This season has been anything but linear for the star shortstop.

After missing nearly the entire month of June with a quad injury and playing through leg ailments before that, Franco entered play on Saturday hitting just .176 with one extra-base hit -- a double -- in four games since being activated on June 26.

It was far from what the struggling Rays needed. The 21-year-old Franco has hit the ball hard and avoided swings and misses since being back, but the expected success didn’t show up right away.

“It had been a long time without a home run, because of the injury and all,” said Franco. “But, yeah, it felt really good.”

His slow return to form and the Rays’ tough offensive stretch could have given Franco a perfectly good excuse to be frustrated. Instead, he has looked happier and more relaxed every day.

The reason for that is pretty simple: He’s not playing through any discomfort.

“It’s much better, because I haven’t felt pain,” Franco explained. “I’ve been playing normally, without thinking about anything [else], and that makes me happier.”

That positivity has been widespread in Tampa Bay’s clubhouse, even after the team was handed a couple of tough losses to start the series in Toronto.

“Since the day started today, we had a positive attitude,” said Paredes. “And before Game 2 started, when the bullpen came out, there was this harmony of, ‘Wow, we’re going to win.’”

If the offensive production came as somewhat of a pleasant surprise, though, Shane McClanahan’s utter dominance in Game 1 felt almost routine.

The Rays’ left-handed starter struck out 10 Blue Jays batters in seven innings of one-run ball, with three hits and one walk yielded. It was his second consecutive outing with double-digit strikeouts and his 10th quality start in a row.

“He’s a stud,” Cash remarked. “He’s doing it against a team that doesn’t strike out very much. I’m just so impressed at the way Mac goes about his business.”

The Blue Jays seemed poised to test McClanahan’s dominance early, when Bo Bichette and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. combined for a couple of hits that made it 1-0 in the bottom of the first.

But the lefty bounced back in elite fashion, striking out five of the last six batters he faced, including the side in the seventh. McClanahan counted on his newly developed changeup against a righty-heavy Blue Jays lineup, making adjustments when needed and executing all of the 94 pitches he threw.

“I take each start for what it is, and that’s a new day,” said McClanahan. “It doesn’t matter what you did in the past, it’s all about today. … I’m trusting the guys behind me, filling it up and trying not to do too much.”

That trust was rewarded on both ends of the ball on Saturday.

“The guys were doing it today,” said McClanahan. “We’re starting to click, and we’re extremely excited about it.”

Making his first start since June 10, Drew Rasmussen also delivered a solid, if not dominant, outing in Game 2. The right hander pitched 4 2/3 innings with two runs -- one earned -- five hits and two strikeouts after being activated as the Rays’ 27th man for Saturday’s doubleheader.