So if we forgot about the 3rd inning the Jays win 3-0. All in favor?
That inning tied for the worst in Blue Jay history. As with all innings that go badly lots of things went wrong. Bad pitching, bad luck, a poor call by the umpire at first and bad defense.
The inning went single, walk, single to load the bases. Brett Cecil loaded the bases yesterday and worked his way out of it. Ricky Romero wasn't so lucky. Double, two runs score. Alex Rodriguez ground out softly to short, but it was a slow roller that went right under Ricky Romero's glove, easy play he just took his eyes off the ball. Had he picked it up, he had an easy out at the plate, as it was a run scored. Single, another run scores. Posado flies out, two down. At this point four runs have scored and the Jays are only down by two. Life isn't that bad.
Granderson hits a soft roller to Aaron Hill, Hill and the baserunner come close when he pitcks it up, and his throw to first is slower than it should me. I thought he got the out but the umpire didn't. That was big. I still think he was out. Hill might have been able to go to second to get the runner easier, but I think it made the right move. Them Romero gets two strikes on Chad Huffman and then tries to go inside, comes in too far and hit Huffman, Loading the bases. A Brett Gardner grand slam unloaded them and the game was over. The GS was Ricky's 36 pitch of the inning. Realu you should pull a pitcher before 36 pitches in an inning but Cito's not going to do that.
Brian Tallet comes in. Sending Tallet in is Cito's way of throwing in the white towel. Tallet, walks one, walks two, walks three. Then gets a pop up to our left fielder John McDonald. John, like all good outfields is wearing his sunglasses but has them flipped up. So he loses the ball in the sun, somehow the official scorer calls it a double. Official scorers are stupid. Anyone else in baseball doing that and the TV announcers would have been on his case for the rest of the game, over the sunglass thing. But Johnny is a 'good guy', gritty player, all the things they call a white guy that is a marginal major leaguer. I like Johnny, I think he has a great glove at short, but there is no way in the world that he should be playing outfield. Before the game Pat and Buck told us how great he was out there when he played in left in Philly. That had me wondering if they had actually watched that game because he was terrible in the field that day. I'm hoping Cito's little experiment with Mac in the outfield is now over but I know better. Tallet finally gets a fly ball to an outfielder actually wearing his sunglasses and the inning ends with us down 11-2.
There isn't much more to say about that game. Jose Bautista hit a first inning two run homer. We could have had more runs that inning but Chad Huffman made a great catch on a Aaron Hill fly out. Actually Huffman moved in on the ball at first but made up for it with a dive catch, running back on the ball. Alex Gonzalez hit a solo homer later in the game.
Romero (-.486 WPA) the Suckage Jay award. Jose Bautista has the number (.140). Basically he got the number for the 2 run homer in the first. Since after the 3rd, we were down so much nothing a player did could effect their WPA the rest of the way.
Tomorrow Brandon Morrow goes again Phil Hughes, in the rubber match of the series. That's the nice part about this game, no matter how bad it is, it only counts as one loss. Let's get them tomorrow.
A Thwip from Jeff Blair:
Shaun Marcum had MRI Saturday. Confirms injury is elbow inflammation.
Good news.