Frank Thomas blasted a grand slam for his first home run as a Blue Jay to lead Toronto to an 8-5 road win over the Tampa Bay Devil Rays on Saturday night.

The victory came 30 years to the day after the Blue Jays won their inaugural game 9-5 over the Chicago White Sox at snowy Exhibition Stadium in Toronto.

Frank Thomas celebrates his first homer as a Blue Jay in the second inning of Saturday's game in Tampa.
(Steve Nesius/Associated Press)

Thomas produced an impressive breakthrough of his own Saturday, making the most of his first homer in a Jays uniform by bashing a 453-foot grand slam off Casey Fossum in the second inning to put Toronto up 6-1.

The round-tripper — the 488th of Thomas's career — was one of two hits on the night for the mammoth slugger, who also drew a pair of walks.

"When I get to 500, I'll be happy — extremely happy," Thomas said. "But I've got my focus somewhere else. I don't want to get caught trying to just get to 500 because that can be a long, long chase. I'm not going to put pressure on myself."

Reed Johnson had three hits and batted in a run for the Jays, while Jason Phillips and Royce Clayton had two hits apiece.

Reliever Shaun Marcum (1-0) struck out five of the seven batters he faced in 2 1/3 perfect innings to get the victory.

Ryan bounces back

On the flip side, Tomo Ohka was ineffective in his Blue Jays debut. The righthander allowed five runs on six hits, while walking three and striking out one over 4 1/3 innings of work.

"You get a big lead, and you cough it up sometimes," Toronto manager John Gibbons said. "It's tough to stop that momentum, but we were able to do that."

Devil Rays starter Fossum fared even worse, surrendering seven runs on eight hits over 3 2/3 innings.

"The pitch to Frank hurt, obviously," Devil Rays manager Joe Maddon said. "If he (Fossum) could have avoided that, it would have been a different game."

The Tampa offence was led by Carl Crawford, who started the bottom of the first with a homer, and Brendan Harris, who's three-run tater in the fourth cut Tampa's deficit to 7-5.

The Devil Rays threatened to get even closer with runners on first and second and none out in the eighth. But Jason Frasor settled down to retire the next three Tampa hitters, including strikeouts of B.J. Upton and Crawford to end the inning.

Alex Rios tacked on an insurance run for the Jays by leading off the ninth with a triple, then scoring on Clayton's RBI single.

B.J. Ryan, who blew a two-run lead in Toronto's 6-5 loss on Friday night, worked a perfect final inning to nail down his second save of the season.

The Blue Jays and Devil Rays play the rubber match of their three-game set on Sunday afternoon (1:40 p.m. ET). Both teams will send their aces to the mound, with Toronto's Roy Halladay facing flame-thrower Scott Kazmir.

With files from the Associated Press