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No losses are good, but you have to feel good for John McDonald. It had to be a tough day for him., Father's Day coming so soon after the death of his dad. Then he gets in the game. late, because, well we were getting thumped and that is the only way he gets playing time. And he hits a home run. It's an amazing thing, a guy with 14 home runs in his career comes up with one in his only at bat on Father's Day.
The rest of the game? Shaun Marcum pitched his way into and out of trouble for 5 innings. He left the game with the lead, but threw so many pitches he didn't get deep into the game.
Brian Tallet got into his first game in a week and was awful. 4 hits and a walk and 5 earned runs while just getting 1 out, blowing the save and taking the loss. It might be hard to be sharp if you don't pitch for days at a time but then that that's his role, he's going to have to learn how to do it, or he won't be pitching at all.
Casey Janssen pitched a good 1.2 innings and David Purcey pitched two innings, giving up his first runs since being called up, a two run homer. The runs weren't earned since Fred Lewis dropped a fly ball. If he had made the catch, Purcey would have been out of the inning before the home run.
Offensively, we had 9 hits and 6 walks on the day. John Buck had 3 hits and 3 RBI. Adam Lind and Jose Bautista had 2 hits each, I'm hoping that's a sign they are pulling out of their slumps. Wells, Gonzalez, Overbay, Encarnacion and Hill had 0 fors. Hill took two walks though.
John Buck (.154 WPA) was the Jay of the Day. Marcum deserves honorable mention. Tallet (-.520), Wells (-.100) and Encarnacion (-.100) had Suckage numbers.
All-in-all it was a pretty good weekend of games. We took the series 2 games to won. Jesse Litsch pitched a great game, Brandon Morrow pitched decent and we got some offense at times. And, of course, there was John McDonald's amazing HR. The Jays have tomorrow off, and then 3 games with the Cardinals. And I'm off to TO on Tuesday. I'm really looking forward to seeing some games live.