SAN FRANCISCO — Cody Atkinson stopped at a toy store on his way to work Tuesday on some very important business for the Toronto Blue Jays. Along with fellow assistant Lou Iannotti and head hitting coach David Popkins, he sought to change the vibes around their struggling players and decided to bring something in that represented fearlessness. They looked at some antique stores before settling on Just For Fun, where Atkinson sent his counterparts pics of various items — a sword, a wolf pack — before locking in on a dragon.

Atkinson then picked out a stuffed dragon, a dragon hand puppet and a dragon trinket and brought them to the register, where the cashier asked, “This is for your kids?”

“I said, ‘Actually, no. This is actually for the Toronto Blue Jays,’” Atkinson relayed. “He said, ‘What do you mean?’ I was like, ‘Well, I'm a hitting coach. It's for our hitters.' And I was, like, 'Honestly, if we hit a home run tonight, you might see it.' He's like, 'Really? I go to games a lot. I'm going to watch the game.’”

If he did end up watching, the cashier would indeed have seen the stuffed dragon he sold hours earlier held up by Jonatan Clase, after his three-run shot in the second inning eased some pressure on the Blue Jays and sent them to a 9-3 win over the San Francisco Giants.

Whatever effect, real or imagined, the dragons had, the Blue Jays tripled their output of three runs and matched their hits total of 13 from the previous four games of a difficult road trip. They blasted........

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