Blue Jays 2 A's 6
Not sure if it was the extra time off or that he threw so many pitches last time out or just one of those nights, but Brandon Morrow wasn't sharp tonight. It wasn't that he was terrible, just not sharp. Cito pulled him after 4 innings and 80 pitches, I'd imagine just to be gentle on that arm, but I guess we'll find out.
Brian Tallet came in for the 5th and pitched a good 5th and good 6th. Now if you are me in a tie game, I'd likely pull him at this point. In the 7th he gave up two singles to start the inning, but both were soft ground balls. That's all you can ask of a pitcher, give up soft ground balls, 80% or the time or so they will be turned into outs. Shawn Camp comes in, in a really tough spot and first pitch he ignores Coco Crisp on second so he steals third. Now a much tougher spot. He got a strike out to make things better, then gets a ground ball to Aaron Hill. Hill tags the runner moving to second, gets spun around and throws to first to try to get the last out of the inning. It's wide and The A's get the lead. A single, then a single plus a Travis Snider error and three runs are in and we are down by three. Jesse Carlson pitched the 9th and gave up another run.
On offense, we only got 4 hits. One each for Hill, Overbay, Encarnacion and Escobar, who also took our two walks on the night. That was it. for us. Dallas Braden is a pretty good pitcher.
Jay of the Day is Lyle Overbay (.152 WPA) who drove in our first run. Honorable mention to Escobar. Jays with Suckage numbers are Camp (-.201) and Snider (-.107 plus the error).
On the 'things Cito does I don't understand' list, in the top of the 8th we were down by three and Jose Molina leading off the inning, why not pinch hit? Molina isn't a great hitter, Morrow is out of the game and we are losing so giving JP a couple of innings couldn't hurt. Yeah, I know, we don't pinch hit but this one time would have been an ok moment to try it.
Anyway the rubber match of the series is tomorrow afternoon, 3:00 Eastern. Marc Rzepczynski, coming off a good start against the Angels goes for us. Gio Gonzalez (10-8, 3.49) starts for the A's. Please Cito, let Arencibia play. Those of you who get Sportsnet One can watch.