Blue Jays 2 Rockies 0: Maicer Izturis Plays Hero

Rockies 0 Blue Jays 2

That was just a fun game. I loved it. Our 6th straight win. Back in April I would have bet that would couldn't do better than a 2 game win streak this year. We are now 'just' three games under .500.

Maicer Izturis may have been my least favorite player just a week or two ago, but he's been so good defensively of late, and his bat seems to be coming around. I want to brag that, on Twitter, I said Maicer would get our first hit, just moments before he did it. He got us our first hit, he made a brilliant defensive play that saved us at least one run and he drove in our two runs. Oh, and he started the double play that ended the game.

Josh Johnson looked terrific tonight. It is kind of unfair that we didn't get him the win. He pitched 7.1, allowed just 5 hits, 2 walks with 10 strikeouts. But, to start the 8th inning, he allowed a single and a walk. Gibby tooks him out of the game after a sac bunt to move the runners up to 2nd and 3rd. Brett Cecil came in and allowed Carlos Gonzalez to smoke a line drive that Adam Lind made a great catch on, then intentionally walked Michael Cuddyer, and got Todd Helton to hit a soft ground out to second.

We finally scored in the bottom of the inning, Rajai Davis led off with our second hit of the game. He stole and Colby Rasmus walked. J.P. Arencibia tried to bunt, failed, then barely tapped a ball back to the pitcher, which worked just like a bunt. By John Gibbons' reaction, I think they took the bunt sign off, but it all worked out. With Rajai on second and Colby on first, I'd have preferred a double steal, I'd bet there would be a better success rate on that than on JP bunting. Maicer followed the non-bunt up with a popup that landed in front of the Rockies left fielder Tyler Colvin. It looked, to me, that he was playing way to far back against a weak hitter like Izturis.

Casey Janssen got the save, number 15, walking one batter, just to make it interesting.

It was a great pitching duel. Jorge De La Rosa had a no-hitter going until 1 out in the 6th. The Rockies third baseman, Nolan Arenado made a number of terrific plays, and shortstop D.J. LeMahieu had a couple of plays of his own that were jaw droppers. The Rockies turned 3 double plays, one a hard hit line drive by Mark DeRosa, that Arenado made a nice catch and terrific throw to first to double off Edwin Encarnacion.

We had a couple of great plays of our own. Edwin made a nice stop and throw, from the third base line, to just get Arenado at first. And there was Izturis play on a ground ball up the middle, that would have scored a run, had he not made a great diving stop. Johnson didn't allow made hard hit balls. To go with the 10 strikeouts, he had 8 ground outs and just 2 fly outs. Is it my imagination, or does Edwin look better at third, now, than he ever did when he played the position full time.

Jays of the Day: Cecil (.283 WPA), Johnson (.279), Izturis (.184) and Davis (.098).

Suckage: Bautista (-.149), DeRosa (-.138, but he did look good on defense) and Lind (-.107), but considering how big his catch was in the bottom of the ninth, I'm going going to give him the 'award'.

We had a really nice GameThread tonight, 1,188 comments from 58 of us, thanks to everyone that joined in. I really enjoyed the thread tonight. Damaso's Burnt Shirt led the way, inspiring us all with his 93 comments.