Terrible start from R.A. Dickey, Jays lose to Rays

Blue Jays 2 Rays 9

Well, there goes the perfect season.

R.A. Dickey had just a terrible start. He wasn't helped by an umpire that seemed to think any low knuckleball was a ball, but he had just an awful day. 5 innings, 5 hits, 6 walks, 6 earned, with 4 strikeouts. It did not go well. And, with David Price pitching against us, giving up 6 runs early isn't going to work.

Price was his usual tough to hit self. We managed 6 hits and a walk off him in 7.1 innings. We had chances to score but weren't able to until Erik Kratz' 2-run homer in the 8th. They are going to have a tough time sending him back down when Janssen comes off the DL. We had 7 hits in all, 2 from Maicer Izturis and 1 each from Melky Cabrera, Jose Bautista, Dioner Navarro, Josh Thole and Kratz.

Ryan Goins, Edwin Encarnacion, Brett Lawrie and Colby Rasmus all had 0 fors.

The worst news was Jose Reyes leaving the game with 'hamstring tightness' after a pop out to right to start the game.

Also, in the bad, Jeremy Jeffress hit a batter. Then the next batter hit a bouncer over Jeremy's head that he chased and threw well wide of first. Adding error to error, Bautista, trying to get the batter running to 3rd, threw wide too. Jeremy should have left the ball to Lawrie to field and Jose really shouldn't have tried to get Myers going to 3rd. There was no reason for it. After that it went walk, single, sac fly, single and hit batter before Jeffress got the 3rd out. 3 runs scored against him.

Colby Rasmus did make a nice throw to the plate, getting James Loney, who was trying to score from 2nd on a single.

No Jays of the Day today. Suckage goes to Dickey (-.287 WPA) and Josh Thole (-.100) And I'm giving one to Jeffress for the error, even if his WPA was only -.009.

On the positive side, we had 1,666 comments in our 2 gamethreads. Pikachu led the way with 233 comments. Great work Pika (words I never thought a grown man would ever say).