A Mix of a Poor Start For Rickey Romero And No Offense Nets The Jays a Loss

Mariners 3 Blue Jays 2

Ricky Romero wasn't good. In 4 innings and 2 batters, he gave up 8 hits, 4 walks and, surprisingly, just 3 earned. How you can allow that many base runners and only have 3 of them score seems like magic. Ricky seemed to fall behind every batter. It still doesn't seem like anything physical. He seems to be throwing as hard as ever. Breaking balls break. Change up is a good speed.

Ricky wasn't happy to be taken out.. He walked the leadoff hitter, in he 5th, then went 3 straight balls to the next batter, before getting a strike, then giving up a very soft ground ball single. Farrell came out for the ball. I can understand him being upset, but I'm thinking some tough love to Ricky is maybe a good idea. Either throw strikes or you are out of there. Nothing else has worked.

Our bullpen did a great job for 5 shutouts innings. 2 innings for Steve Delabar and 1 inning each for Brandon Lyon, Darren Oliver and Casey Janssen. You may have noticed something, Farrell went with the guys he usually saves for leads even though we were trailing. It's an open question as to whether this is a change in his philosophy, or if it was just that they hadn't thrown for a few days. Anyway, good move Farrell.

On offense, Edwin Encarnacion hit a 2 run homer, his 39th and that was it. We managed just 2 hits and 3 walks against Kevin Millwood and 4 relievers. Kevin Millwood. I figured I could go 3 for 4 against Millwood.

Jays of the Day are Delabar (.208 WPA, he came in with 2 on and no out, and got out of the inning with a run scoring) and Edwin (.125). Honorable mention to the other relievers. They kept us in the game and we should have been able to at least tie it up. Suckage Awards go to Romero (-.198), Yunel (-.203), Sierra (-.129), Colby (-.117) and Gose (-.094).

Gose and Hechavarria played LF and 2B respectively, showing what they could do at the spot that might be open for each of them next year. Gose didn't get many chances in left. Hechavarria has plenty of range for second, though it is a waste of his arm.

Tomorrow night it is Henderson Alvarez (8-12, 4.95) taking on the Mariners. Felix Hernandez (13-7, 2.67) gets to throw to our magic bats. If we could only get 2 hits again Millwood, Felix should allow a negative number of hits.

I wish the offense would score Ricky a bunch of runs and get him off the hook. He wasn't good, but the M's only scored 3 runs and he still gets he loss. Help the guy out a little.