The Blue Jays Made It Close: Moral Victory

Blue Jays 2 Rays 3

Good pitching yet again wasted. We really need Jose Bautista back.

Carlos Villanueva had the one bad inning, other than that he was pretty good. In the 3rd inning, Carlos gave up 2 doubles, 2 singles and 2 walks, for 3 earned. That was all the Rays needed.

Now that we aren't getting leads, we are getting good relief pitching. Earlier in the season we could get leads but we couldn't hold them. Tonight Steve Delabar and Brad Lincoln each threw a scoreless inning. They do look good. Too bad we have no offense.

We got 2 runs, Edwin Encarnacion drove in Rajai Davis, with a sac fly in the 3rd and David Cooper hit a solo home run in the 9th. We had 6 hits total, making Alex Cobb look really good, and 10 strikeouts.

We missed out on a chance to score in the 7th, Kelly Johnson led off with a double, then Farrell had Jeff Mathis bunt. Bunting for a run when you are down by 2 in the 7th inning is just silly, but he got it down and we had Kelly on 3rd, with 1 out. But Anthony Gose struck out, ruining whatever value the bunt had and then Adeiny Hechavarria struck out to end the inning.

No Jays of the Day today. Even with the home run in the 9th, David Cooper finished with a -.031 WPA. He made the final out in the 3rd with 2 on, which hurt his number.

Suckage numbers go to Carlos (-.184, not really fair, he wasn't terrible), Rajai (-.117, 0 for 3 with a k) and Gose (-.104, 0 for 3, 2k. He didn't look good at the plate).

So tomorrow we have an afternoon game. Henderson Alvarez (7-8, 4.47) tries to salvage the final game of this series. Matt Moore (8-7, 3.84) gets to try to up his strikeout rate.

We are 53-57, dropping to 4 games under .500, tying our low mark of the season. We really need Jose Bautista back. Maybe it won't be long:

Farrell says MRI on Jose Bautista shows some improvement, still some inflammation, will resums hitting drills off tee and dry swings Monday

— Shi Davidi (@ShiDavidi) August 9, 2012