Jays Win Their 10th Straight! Jose Bautista Plays Hero Today

Orioles 2 Blue Jays 4

Ten in a Row!!!!

Jose Bautista picked the perfect moment to come out of his slump. Darren O'Day really shouldn't have made him mad yesterday. Bautista's 2-run homer in the 8th was just great.

Then Casey Janssen comes in and saves it, his 17th of the season. Janssen has been a favorite around here for a long time. I couldn't be happier for him, or for us, the ones lucky enough to get to watch him. He's been so good in the closer role.

I'm not really sure we deserved to win that one, we could only get 3 hits all Miguel Gonzalez. Gonzalez was helped out by a pretty wide strike zone and by batters that couldn't time his stuff. We scored in the first, Melky Cabrera walked, went to third on Adam Lind's 2-out single and scored on a wild pitch. That was the slowest first to third that I have ever seen. The Orioles tied it in the 5th, Travis Ishikawa singled home Chris Davis.

We took the lead in the bottom of the inning, Maicer Izturis hit his 5th home run of the season. Munenori Kawasaki almost hit his second, in the same inning, putting one into the second deck, but just foul. He did end up taking a walk. His turned himself into a fan favorite. How many players get a standing ovation for a base on balls?

The O's tied it up again on a solo homer by Taylor Teagarden, off Darren Oliver, in the top of the 8th, setting up Jose's heroics. It wasn't a bad pitch by Oliver. Sometimes guys hit good pitches.

Chien-Ming Wang was very good. 6.1 innings, 4 hits, 1 unearned run, 0 walks, 2 strikeouts. He was helped by the inconsistent strike zone too. Gibby pulled him early, deciding to let Aaron Loup go after Chris Davis, with one out in the 7th. Loup ended up hitting Davis. Gibby pulled him and put in Neil Wagner, who did a great job getting out of the inning on a ground out and fly out. The ground out could easily have been a single up the middle, but Wagner got a glove on it, deflecting it to Kawasaki, who made a nice play, getting to the deflected ball and making a great throw to first to get the out.

We had the odd moment of bad defense. Emilio Bonifacio was charged with an error on a ball that I didn't think he had much of a shot at making a play on. Edwin Encarnacion had a couple of bad moments at first base, missing a ball he should have had early and then fumbling a ground ball to him, and throwing to Oliver, covering first, just a bit late. Oliver was late getting to the bag, but I think he slowed to give Edwin a chance to make the throw. Either way they missed an out they should have made. J.P. misplayed a couple of balls in the dirt, earning 'wild pitches' for Wang and Wagner.

There were some good plays too. Izturis did a nice job starting a double play, in the first inning and Bonifacio made a nice turn on it. Wang caught a line drive and doubled Ryan Flahery off first. And Melky Cabrera made a couple of nice (for him) running catches in left.

Jays of the Day: Bautista (.309 WPA), Wang (.281), Izturis (.114) and Wagner (.102).

Oliver had the Suckage number at -.132 for the home run allowed. The first run allowed by our bullpen in days.

Tomorrow we go for our 3rd straight sweep with Josh Johnson starting. The Orioles haven't announced a starter yet.

We had another fun GameThread (aren't they all fun when we win?). 55 of us totalled 1,622 comments. TFSML led the way, with a dirty bit of cheating to pump up his numbers, but then, if you ain't cheating, you ain't trying.