The game I have to leave after the 8th inning turns into this. I guess a win is a win. BJ has had a few shaky saves of late and today he took his 4th blown save. On a team that has three relievers with ERA's under 2 it seems strange to have a closer whose ERA is over 3.
Let's start with the Fangraph:
Before BJ came in we had a 97.2% chance of winning. Then a hit batter, a Rocco homerun (if he did it against someone else I'd be happy for him), a walk, a steal and a big time error by Inglett (his second in two days) and suddenly with have a 50.1% chance of winning.
Offensively we got great games out of Inglett 3 for 6, Lyle 3 for 5, with 2 homers and Zaun 3 for 5 with the walk off grand slam.
Pitching: after a shaky start, Marcum turned in a great game, 7 inning, 4 hits, 3 walks, 7 strikeouts and no runs allowed. He was very lucky for the first three innings but after that he was terrific, looking like he did before the injury. Downs pitched a shutout inning despite walking 2, he didn't look sharp. Then BJ......to be fair, without the error he might have got the save, but he wasn't good.
League pitched a good inning, Cy gave us 4 outs, Frasor got us an out before loading the bases but Parrish saved him, getting the final out of the 12th. Then Camp and Tallet combined to give up the go ahead run in the 13th. And suddenly our chance of winning dropped to 20.9%. And facing the Rays closer Troy Percival in the bottom of the 13th it didn't look good.
And even less good when Rios popped out. But VW (can we call him Punch Buggy?) singled bringing up everyone's favorite Jay Brad Wilkerson. But against all odds Wilk came up with a big single, raising his average to .220. Runners on first and second, one out and Lyle who would have been the offensive hero had the game ended when it should have, hits into a force at second. Rolen walks to load the bases and Zaun comes thru with the grand slam to win the game.
You have to feel good for Zaun, he hasn't played much over the second half of the season so is very nice he gets to be the hero today. This was just the Jay's second walk-off grand slam in team history.
Jays of the Day: Zaun (.571 WPA), Marcum (.361), Cy (.204), Parrish (.175), League (.143). Honorable mention has to go to Overbay with two homeruns.
The first Batista/McLaughlin/Lamp (we have to pick one name) Awards (Suckage Jay bullpen edition) goes to BJ (-.322), Tallet (-.322) and Frasor (-.093). Hinske Awards (Suckage Jay batter) Scoot (-.158) and Moonraker (-.142).
I guess I've buried the lead; the important thing to come out of this is that we have moved into a tie with the Yankees for third in the East. As I write this the Yankee-Mariner game is just starting. Go Mariners!!
Tomorrow we have Purcey (2-5, 6.15) going against Jay killer Matt Garza (11-8, 3.64). Now if we can beat Garza we really do have something going, too little too late but would be very cool to beat him big. Today's title comes from a song by Jerry Reed, Jerry passed away today. He was a country rocker back when it really wasn't cool and one of the best guitar players you would ever want to see.
I just have to share with you a quote from Troy Percival:
"It's not a crushing loss," said Percival
Says the guy that gives up the walk off grand slam. I would think it's pretty damn crushing.