How Do You Remove a Curse on Baseball Bats? Jay Lose to Orioles.

Blue Jays 2 Orioles 5

Lets look at the bright side.

I'm thinking....

Well, Drew Hutchison looked pretty good. 5 innings, 6 hits, 2 runs, 1 walk, 2 strikeouts. He kept the ball down, for the most part. He gave up a run in the 5th off a walk, single and sac fly. And then a run in the 6th off a lead off double and an infield single that Yunel Escobar should have held onto, but instead he threw it past first. Edwin Encarnacion should have left the bag and blocked the throw, so the blame should be spread around some.

After that run, Luiz Perez came in and got out of the inning with a ground ball and 2 strikeouts. He had trouble in the 7th, hitting the lead off batter, then the O's bunted and no one went to get the ball. Edwin stayed at first, Omar Vizquel went to first to cover the bag and Luiz, well, he went towards first too. One of them should have gone to the ball.

Casey Janssen came in, with runners on the corners and got out of it without giving up the go ahead run, saving Perez' 0 ERA. And that was the end of the good times.

Casey gave up a lead off homer in the 8th, Adam Jones just clearing the wall in left. A Matt Wieters single followed, and Casey was lifted for Darren Oliver, who quickly gave up a homer to center to lefty hitter Chris Davis. And that was the game.

On offense, we did nothing again. 5 hits, 3 walks and a lot of very weak contact. We have Nick Johnson to thank for the 2 runs we did get. He missed a Eric Thames bouncer down the first base line, an act of charity, for which we should thank him. It was called a triple, at the time, but the scorer corrected it later. We only had two hard hit balls: a J.P. Arencibia double, that hit about three feet from the top of the wall and, in the 9th, Edwin Encarnacion hit a ball hard off the right field wall, barely missing a home run again. For a moment, after Edwin's hit, I thought there might be a chance, but Thames quickly hit into a double play, to spare us from extending that moment of hope.

Jay of the Day? Fangraphs gives Eric a .238 WPA, but that was for the Johnson error, so no JoD again today. Hutchison deserves an honorable mention.

Suckage? Throw a dart at any of the batters (please). Brett Lawrie gets a -.122 and Ben Francisco a -.106, so they earn the award. Casey Janssen erased his good work in the 7th with lousy work in the 8th, but Oliver didn't have any good work to erase so let's give him the coveted award as well.

I'm hoping the Jays reunite with their bats, back in Toronto, for the series against the Mariners or we are all going to need antidepressants.