Blue Jays Win 9th Straight Game: Rajai Davis Walk Off Hit, Kawasaki Homers

Orioles 6 Blue Jays 7

Just wow. That was wonderful. Excluding our World Series wins, that might be the most fun I've ever had watching a ball game.

Our 9th straight win. Back to .500!

I never thought I'd see Munenori Kawasaki hit a home run. He sure picked the right moment to do it. He is just so much fun.

And Rajai Davis? Gotta love the walk off winning hit. Maicer Izturis set things up, with a lead off single. Then Josh Thole put down a very nice bunt. The sac bunt set up an intentional walk of pinch hitter Mark DeRosa, which gave Kawasaki another chance to be hero, unfortunately against a LHP, Brian Matusz. At least Munenori made him throw a bunch of pitches, before grounding out. DeRosa did a nice job avoiding the tag of the second baseman. That was a big moment. If DeRosa had been tagged, the double play would have ended the inning and Rajia wouldn't have had the chance to be the hero.

Earlier in the game we had home runs from Adam Lind, a 2-run shot in the first, and Edwin Encarnacion, a solo one in the 6th. Kawasaki had an RBI single in the 5th.

R.A. Dickey wasn't good, yet again. He was pretty good early, allowing just 1 run through the first 5 innings, a solo homer by J.J. Hardy. But his 6th inning wasn't good, he gave an RBI single to Adam Jones and a 3-run homer to Chris Davis. Amazingly enough, Gibbons sent him back out in the 7th and he served up another home run to Ryan Flaherty to start the inning, followed by a Danny Valencia walk. That was finally enough for Gibbons.

It really didn't seem like his knuckleball was moving much. In all Dickey went 6.0 allowing 7 hits, 3 home runs, 6 earned, 2 walks, 5 k. He has to find a way to stop giving up so many home runs.

Brett Cecil came in to get 6 straight outs, but not all of them at the plate. With 2 outs in the 7th, he picked Valencia off first base. He has now gone 43 straight batters without giving up a hit, though without a nice catch in left, from Rajai, his streak would be over. Melky would have never made that catch. Casey Janssen pitched a clean 9th, Emilio Bonifacio helped him by making a nice jump catch on a Hardy line drive.

Jays of the Day: Davis (.384 WPA), Kawasaki (.342), Cecil (.171) and Janssen (.143). Honorable mention to Adam and Edwin.

Suckage: Dickey (-.458) and Bautista (-.126, off an 0 for 4 with 2 k). Jose did make good contact once, hitting a foul ball into the fourth deck, then flying out to the track. I'm hoping he is coming around. Thole had the number too, -.105, but I am going to give him credit for the good bunt and for doing a nice job catching Dickey.

I love this:

via cdn.fangraphs.com

On a personal note, the sun came out, here in Calgary, about the time Rajai won us the game. And there is no water in my basement. I'm hoping the worst is over.

It was another good game thread (winning makes everything better), Damaso's Burnt Shirt led the way with 145 comments, winning by 31 comments. 68 of us totaled 1,587 comments. Not bad for a Friday night.