Sometimes, with baseball, one game or one inning encapsulates the entire season. Tonight it was the Jays half of the first inning.
It started with Melky Cabrera striking out on a pitch that hit him in the foot. If the ball didn't hit him, he could have made it to first on the strikeout, as the ball bounced away or, if he didn't swing, he would have been on first on a hit by pitch. But, instead, he was out.
Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion walked. It looked like David Phelps couldn't find the strike zone with both hands and a compass.
Up came our 'cleanup hitter'. J.P. Arencibia. He resembles a cleanup hitter like I resemble a model. Yeah, JP has a bunch of home runs and I've got the basic two arms, two legs and head. For both of us, that's where the resemblance ends. With JP, it doesn't matter that the pitcher can't find the strike zone, he's not going to take a walk unless the ball rolls up to the plate, and sometimes he'll still swing at it. He's a nice enough player to have near the back of the order, then you can be happy with the occasional home run, but cleanup? No, please no. Anyway, he struck out.
But we still have two on and Adam Lind up, against a RHP having problems with his control. Lind is as locked in as anyone on the team at the moment. So what happens? Jose Bautista gets picked off of second base. I don't want to rag on Jose too much, he has been our best player for a long time now, but you can't get picked off there. It can't happen. Pay attention to the game going on around you!
And that's been our season.
Brandon Morrow wasn't as terrible as his line looks, he was cruising until the 3rd inning. Jayson Nix singled to start the inning. David Adam hit a ground ball to Morrow. Morrow dropped it but still looked to have time to get Nix at second, instead he went to first. Brett Gardner singled, driving home Nix. Robinson Cano followed with a Yankee Stadium home run. Man I hate that place. And we were down 3-0. Cano hit a 2 run shot in the 5th, this one not a Yankee Stadium special.
Brett Cecil pitched a quick 6th, Steve Delabar a quick 7th. Darren Oliver had his infield commit 2 errors behind him and gave up a home run to Travis Hafner. Maicer Izturis airmailed a throw over Lind on a routine ground ball and Lind couldn't pick up a ball slowly rolling up the first base line.
On offense, we had 8 hits, including a home run and 3 doubles, 3 walks and only scored 2 runs. Lind hit 2 doubles, everyone else had 1 hit except for Brett Lawrie (0 for 4, 1 k) and Jose Bautista, but he took 2 walks. Edwin hit his 12th home run, tying him with Cano for the league lead. We didn't get hits when we needed them.
No Jays of the Day today. Colby Rasmus led with a .039 WPA and he also made a nice catch in the 8th, off a long fly to center from Gardner.
Suckage goes to Morrow (-.230),. Lawrie (-.093, 0 for 4, k) and Melky (.092, 1 for 4 with a k). I thought Melky was running a little better today.
R.A. Dickey goes against CC Sabathis tomorrow. Please be great, RA.
30 of us totaled 480 comments this afternoon:
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3 | MjwW | 52 |
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