The day started nice enough. A full house gave Roy Halladay a long long standing ovation. It all went to hell at the end.
The good news is that we got some runs against Doc. Jose Bautista hit a bomb off him, straight to CF. We got 2 more runs in the 5. Corey Patterson beat out a infield single and went to third on a Chase Utley throwing error. After a Rajai Davis strikeout, John McDonald singled, scoring Patterson. A hit and run ground out for Aaron Hill moved Mac to second and Eric Thames singled to drive him home.
Thames and Mac had two hits each. Bautista had the homer. Hill, Arencibia and Davis had 0 fors.
Carlos Villanueva had a good start too. He went 6.2, gave up 5 hits, 4 walks with 3 strikeouts. He left the game with a lead but Luis Perez took over for him with a runner on first and hung a curve to Chase Utley and he hit a home run and that got Perez the loss.
Jays of the Day? Villanueva (.127 WPA) got the number. I'm going to give one each to Mac, Thames and Bautista as well. I figure if you get two hits or a homer against Halladay you deserve a JoD. Suckage numbers go to Perez (-.334, just one bad pitch but it was at the wrong time), JP (-.131), Hill (-.120) and Davis (-.116 and on defense a fly ball that went over his head that I thought he should have caught).
The Jays had disagreements with plate umpire Alfonso Marquez' strike zone all day long. Bautista, Hill, JP and others didn't enjoy some strike calls. JP also talked to Alfonso a few times when he was catching. It was pretty clear that Doc was getting strike calls that our pitchers weren't getting.
It came to a head in the 9th with Jon Rauch pitching. Rauch threw two pitches to Shane Victorino that he felt were good enough to be strike 3 (one that was clearly a strike), then had gave up a single to left that Chase Utley just beat the tag at the plate on. Rauch went off in Alfonso's face and was quickly ejected. John Farrell tried his best to keep Rauch away from Marquez but he give up 6 inches and 80 pounds on the guy.
Then Farrell continued the argument and got ejected. That's the maddest I've seen Farrell, but what really got me was Farrell was arguing from a bit of a distance and Marquez got into his face. There is no way a umpire should be getting in the face of a coach or player. The players are allowed to be upset, an umpire should be above getting upset.
It was irratating that Halladay would get strike calls that our pitchers weren't getting. He is good enough that he doesn't need help
A bad result but it was a good game, we put up a good effort against a great pitcher.