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Blue Jays target sweep of Cubs

Sep 10, 2014 - 2:37 PM (SportsNetwork.com) - The Toronto Blue Jays aren't quite ready to concede.

The hosts can complete a sweep of the visiting Chicago Cubs and remain on the fringes for the second American League wild card playoff berth with a victory on Wednesday night in the finale of a three-game series at Rogers Centre.

Toronto's Tuesday night win over the Cubs was its second straight in the series, third in a row overall and eighth in 10 games. The Blue Jays are 4 1/2 games behind the Detroit Tigers, who currently hold the second of two wild card positions.

The Blue Jays have won four straight at home and have been boosted over recent weeks by the hot bat of Jose Bautista, who stretched his personal hit streak to 13 games on Tuesday. He has a .333 average, eight home runs and 19 runs batted in during the stretch.

"Jose has been one of the best hitters in baseball over the last few years," manager John Gibbons said. "He's got the knack of doing something big when it counts, when we need something."

Toronto has outscored the Cubs, 17-2, in the first two games of the series, but will encounter rookie right-hander Kyle Hendricks, who's in the midst of his own streak.

The Cubs have won Hendricks' last seven starts and nine of 10 overall. He was dinged for four runs in Chicago's 6-4 loss to Cincinnati in his big-league debut on July 10, but he's surrendered only 10 earned runs in 56 1/3 innings since.

Kendrick's previous outing came last Wednesday and he yielded two runs and nine hits in a 6-2 defeat of Milwaukee.

Meanwhile, the Cubs are batting just .218 while dropping five straight games. They face Toronto's own hot pitcher, Drew Hutchison.

Hutchison has given up just two runs in his last 21 2/3 innings over three home starts. In his last home outing, on Aug. 30, he tossed seven scoreless innings of one-hit ball in a 2-0 defeat of the New York Yankees.

He last pitched on Friday against Boston and allowed three runs in six innings of a game the Blue Jays ultimately lost, 9-8, in 10 innings.

Hutchison has never faced the Cubs.

On Tuesday, Bautista's three-run double in the seventh inning led the Blue Jays to a 9-2 victory.

Bautista finished with four RBI, Munenori Kawasaki and Jose Reyes each brought in two runs and Kevin Pillar and Edwin Encarnacion supplied three hits apiece for the Blue Jays.

Mark Buehrle (12-9) gave up 10 hits and two runs with three strikeouts over seven innings for the win.

Javier Baez had two hits and two runs scored, while Welington Castillo supplied three hits and an RBI for Chicago.

Neil Ramirez (2-2) was tagged with the loss after giving up two runs in the seventh. Starter Jake Arrieta allowed two runs on seven hits with five strikeouts across 6 1/3 frames.

The Jays and Cubs are meeting for the first time since 2008, when Chicago took two of three games north of the border.