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His third homer of the season also helped the Jays climb back to .500 with their fifth win in the last six games, a 3-1 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays at Rogers Centre.

Jays right-hander Chris Bassitt took a no-decision despite limiting Tampa Bay to one run while striking out six across 5 2/3 innings. The win went to left-hander Brendon Little.

The Jays now find themselves in second in the American League East. They moved half a game ahead of Boston and two games ahead of the fourth-place Rays. 

Here’s everything you need to know about the latest win:

Escaping jams

Bassitt navigated his way in and out of jams for most of the night.

He stranded runners on the corners in the first inning by getting designated hitter Christopher Morel to pop out. He kept Brandon Lowe at second in the third by getting Junior Caminero to pop up as well.

The only damage Bassitt encountered came in the fourth and even there he found a way out by limiting the Rays to an RBI single off the bat of Kameron Misner.

The Rays finished the game 1-for-5 with runners in scoring position while leaving eight men on base.

Captain Kirk

Kirk has been on fire of late.

He has at least one hit in all but two of his last 13 games started. Seven of those were multi-hit games, which also included a pair of doubles and two homers. Kirk was batting .211 on April 23 with a .532 on-base plus slugging percentage. He’s now batting .293 with a .716 OPS thanks to that 13-game run.

Kirk’s homer Wednesday came when the Jays were trailing 1-0 and he was behind in the count 0-2. The sixth-year catcher sent a 96-m.p.h. fastball from Rays starter Ryan Pepiot over the wall in right-centre at an estimated 407 feet.

He nearly had another RBI in the bottom of the eighth but was robbed after Misner made a diving grab in centre.

Yimi time

Jeff Hoffman’s recent struggles in the closer’s role opened the door for Yimi Garcia to get his third save of the season.

There’s no reason to believe Hoffman has lost his job, but Jays manager John Schneider decided to give him a breather after he served up five runs on four hits the night before.

After starting the year with a sparkling 1.10 ERA in 14 appearances, Hoffman has surrendered 11 runs over his last five.

Garcia went through his own struggles earlier this month but he tossed a scoreless ninth against the Rays to secure the win.

Since allowing seven runs in one combined inning against the Cleveland Guardians and Los Angeles Angels, Garcia has tossed two scoreless innings while striking out three.