TORONT0 -- The Pittsburgh Pirates did not score an earned run against Toronto Blue Jays starter Marcus Stroman on Friday night.

The Pirates took advantage of what was given them, however.

Two errors by Blue Jays second baseman Rob Refsnyder in the third inning led to four unearned runs for the Pirates.

That was all they needed to defeat the Blue Jays 4-2 in the opener of a three-game interleague series.

"The defense has my back all year. They've made unbelievable plays for me all year," Stroman said. "I felt like I should have done a better job in that situation of buckling down and getting my team out of that."

"That's what you do against good pitchers like that," Pirates bench coach Tom Prince said. "They gave us a crack. We took advantage of it."

Pirates starter Jameson Taillon (7-5) allowed six hits, one walk and two runs while striking out seven in six-plus innings for his first win since July 20, a span of three winless outings.

"He really didn't run into any trouble," said Prince, who was filling in because manager Clint Hurdle was attending the funeral of Don Baylor.

Taillon, who was born in Lakeland, Fla., has dual U.S.-Canadian citizenship.

He left more than a dozen tickets for family and friends, while as many as 30 more bought tickets to watch his first appearance in Toronto.

"I've got a ton of texts of screen shots of my mom on the broadcast, which is cool," he said.

Felipe Rivero pitched around a single in the ninth for his 12th save of the season.

Stroman (10-6) allowed four hits, one walk and four unearned runs in eight innings. He struck out four in his longest outing since going nine innings in a win over the Los Angeles Angels on April 23.

"He was really good," Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said. "His location was off at times, not as good as we've seen it. But he was good, he was attacking, he had great stuff, he probably could have rolled nine anyway. We had trouble in that third inning obviously. Taillon did a nice job, too, good breaking ball, a good changeup on top of that."

Jose Bautista homered for the Blue Jays (54-61).

After Taillon set down 12 batters in a row, Ezequiel Carrera led off the bottom of the seventh with a double to left. Ryan Goins singled to center to put runners at the corners.

Taillon was replaced by George Kontos, who retired Kevin Pillar on a pop-out to shortstop, struck out Refsnyder and induced a fielder's choice grounder to shortstop from Bautista.

Juan Nicasio pitched around a single in the eighth for Pittsburgh (58-58).

Toronto's Danny Barnes pitched a perfect ninth with two strikeouts.

Pillar hit a sacrifice fly in the second inning to give Toronto a 1-0 lead. It scored Justin Smoak, who led off with a single, and was at third after Steve Pearce walked and Goins singled.

John Jaso was bit by a pitch to start the four-run third inning. He reached third on Refsnyder's errant throw to second on Francisco Cervelli's fielder's choice grounder. Refsnyder failed to tag the bag at second on Adam Frazier's RBI fielder's choice grounder to third.

Josh Harrison hit an RBI single, Andrew McCutchen had an RBI double and Josh Bell hit a sacrifice fly to give the Pirates a 4-1 lead.

McCutchen eventually had to leave the game before the inning ended with a sore left knee.

"I was just taking my secondary lead and my knee kind of grabbed," McCutchen said. "It was just kind of weird. If your knee could get a cramp, that's what it felt like. I feel better now. They ran some tests, everything looked good. It's just going to be see how I feel tomorrow and go from there."

Bautista led off the bottom of the third with his 20th homer of the season and his fourth in the past five games. He has hit 20 or more homers in eight straight seasons.

NOTES: Toronto C Russell Martin (strained left oblique) left the game after one inning and C Raffy Lopez replaced him. Martin will have an MRI Saturday. ... Pirates CF Andrew McCutchen (left patella femoral discomfort) left the game after an RBI double in the third. OF Starling Marte ran for him and played center field. ... Pirates bench coach Tom Prince is running the team Friday and Saturday with manager Clint Hurdle attending the funeral of Don Baylor. ... Pirates OF Gregory Polanco was the DH. Blue Jays RF Jose Bautista was at DH for the second straight game with DH Kendrys Morales (illness) out. Jays OF Norichika Aoki (illness) also was out. ... Toronto RHP Chris Rowley will make his major league debut Saturday against Pittsburgh RHP Trevor Williams (5-4, 4.17 ERA).