Jays Hit 4 Home Runs, Still Lose to Orioles

Orioles 7 Blue Jays 5

That was sad.

Brandon Morrow didn't have a good game but he still left with the Jays ahead 5-4 after 7. In those 7 innings, he gave up 6 hits, but 2 of them were home runs. He gave up 4 earned, with 4 strikeouts and 1 walk. He had a tough game, leaving too many pitches up. He still could have had a win, but the bullpen lost it. If we are up after, we should win.

In the 8th, Jason Frasor came in, gave up a single and got strikeout. Out he goes, in comes Darren Oliver to face Nick Markakis, who gets a single. Then he gets Adam Jones to strike out, It looked like he would get us out of the inning. No such luck. Oliver walked Matt Wieters on 5 pitches. After that Wilson Betemit singled to score 2 and the Orioles took the lead. Farrell finally took Oliver out and brought in Casey Janssen, who struck out Mark Reynolds to end the inning. It was too late though. Janssen gave up a Nolan Reimold homer in the 9, not that it mattered because we couldn't score against the Orioles bullpen.

On offense, we got 4 solo home runs off Tommy Hunter, 1 each for Kelly Johnson, Colby Rasmus (opposite field), Yunel Escobar and Edwin Encarnacion. The problem was we couldn't score in 3 innings against the Orioles bullpen.

Jays of the Day? Well, Fangraphs has Adam Lind at a .130 WPA but they are crediting him for reaching on a Reimold error. Just a terrible error, Reimold totally missed on a easy catch Lind fly ball. The error allowed Jose Bautista to score from first, barely dodging the tag at the plate. Great job by Jose, I don't know why Butterfield sent him, he should have been out. So I'm not giving one to Lind. Colby has a .084 WPA, and he made a couple of nice catches in the field, so I'm giving him JoD.

Suckage? Oliver came into the game with a runner on first and 1 out and a 1 run lead and left with 2 out and the team down by 1, for a -.457 WPA, so he get it.

I'll admit, I don't like Rogers Centre with the roof closed. The ball carries so well. But few of the today's 7 home runs were cheapies.

Tonight wasn't fun. We'll get them tomorrow. Tomorrow's game is a 4:00 Eastern start.