Kazuma Okamoto stood in front of his stall inside the Blue Jays clubhouse on Wednesday with an ice pack strapped to his right arm and another high on his back. The third baseman was struck by a breaking pitch on Tuesday by Miami's Sandy Alcantara and then by a 97-mile-per-hour fastball on Wednesday from Marlins starter Eury Pérez that left a sizable welt.
In his next at-bat, Okamoto exacted some revenge by blasting a changeup from reliever Andrew Nardi 393 feet into the seats in right-centre field for the deciding run in Toronto's 2-1 victory. The home run was Okamoto's team-leading 11th of the season and also gave him a club-high 29 runs batted in. It was his first homer since May 5, when he had a streak of five in five games.
"He has elite power to the opposite field," manager John Schneider said after his team had won its fourth of six on its latest home stand. "He had a bit of a lull lately but everyone goes through it. It's pretty nice for a guy who has taken pitches in the back and arm the last two days to hit a home run."
Okamoto is still making adjustments to the major leagues after being a star for a number of years in Nippon Professional Baseball in Japan. His batting average is just .218 but he went 3-for-10 in the three-game series against Miami with two RBIs. Although some of his teammates are frustrated by seeing him hit by pitches in back-to-back contests, Okamoto acted like it was no big deal.
"I'm not too worried about it," he said through interpreter Yusuke Oshima. "It's part of the game. I'm as good as can be."
The triumph was the eighth in the past 12 outings for Toronto, which begins a four-game series in Baltimore on Thursday. From there the team travels to Atlanta to face the Braves for three. The Blue Jays are not back at Rogers Centre until June 5 when the Orioles come to town.
Kevin Gausman went five innings in the series finale against the Marlins and allowed just one run on six hits. Jeff Hoffman was credited with the win after throwing 1⅓ innings of relief. Tyler Rogers retired the final three outs for his second save.
The Blue Jays trailed 1-0 into the fifth inning until Nathan Lukes tied it at 1-1 with a double off Michael Petersen that brought in Tyler Heineman, who worked a long two-out walk. It was a low-scoring but active game and in one way quite peculiar. The Marlins entered with a major-league-leading 63 stolen bases and tried to wield those high-speed wheels as an advantage. They managed to steal five bases off the catcher, Heineman, but were also caught on four other occasions. At one stretch they had three players thrown out stealing over the course of four at-bats.
"By far, that's the most stealing attempts I've ever seen," Heineman said. "The most I've had anyone try before this was five, so it's up there. It's pretty incredible."
Heineman has struggled to a .147 batting average this year after hitting .289 as the backup to Alejandro Kirk in 2025. On May 3 he was pulled out of a game after a one-pitch at bat and served time in Schneider's penalty box for what the manager called insufficient effort. With Kirk injured, Heineman pretty much lost the starting job to rookie Brandon Valenzuela.
"It has been a tough month and a half for me," Heineman said. "It's nice to just do something to help the team."
Okamoto has begun to feel more confident after his winning home run. "I can still be better," he said through his translator. "I want to contribute and help the team win. It felt good to barrel the ball up [today] and watch it fly."
