Dustin McGowan wins for the first time since 2008, Jays beat Orioles

Blue Jays 2 Orioles 0

You know, I thought Dustin McGowan was a bit unlucky in his first start. Tonight he was very very lucky. His line looks great, 6.1 innings shutout innings, 5 hits, 1 walk, 2 strikeouts. But he gave up a number of deep flies that, on a warmer day, could have been home runs.

Of course, Gibby did his best to drive us to drink again tonight. 24 hours after leaving R.A. Dickey in for too long and watching the game blow up due to that, he left Dustin in for too long tonight, but fortunately it didn't blow up. In the 5th inning McGowan got the first two outs, then gave up three consecutive singles.  They really should have scored but with Nick Markakis on second and Delmon Young on first, Chris Davis singled to right. Orioles third base coach Bobby Dickerson,  was  waving Markakis home, then suddenly changed his mind and threw up a stop sign. I'm pretty sure that Markakis would have scored, but then, you can't blame someone for respecting Bautista's arm. So instead of a run scoring, they had the bases loaded. Adam Jones flied out to center to end the inning.

We were sure Gibby was going to take McGowan out of the game there, but no, he went out there for the 6th. He got some good defense to help him through that inning. Bautista made a great running catch on a ball that was almost to the track, then Melky Cabrera came in on a line drive and made a very nice diving catch (managing to knock the wind out of him, scaring us for a moment, thinking he might be hurt. Then Dustin got an easy ground out to finish the inning and we were sure he was done.

Nope. Out for the 7th and running on fumes, Dustin hit Ryan Flaherty with a pitch, bringing the tying run to the plate. And still he stays in. But Jonathan Schoop popped out and finally Gibby goes to the pen. Brett Cecil was terrific, pitching a clean 1.2 innings, getting 3 strikeouts. And Sergio Santos got 3 quick outs, including 2 strikeouts, to get his 4th save.

On offense, we did almost nothing. We had 3 singles and 1 walk. Melky had one of the hits so his hitting streak from the start of the season continues.

We have to think the O's for our two runs. In the 4th Bautista hit a ground ball to third, that Schoop threw wide of first. Then, after an Edwin Encarnacion single, Adam Lind hit a pretty sure double play ball to third, but Schoop threw that one into right field, allowing Jose to score and leaving us with runners on the corners. Dioner Navarro hit a ground ball to first that, again, looked like it would be a double play, and Davis made a nice throw to second, but Ryan Flaherty threw wide of first. Navarro is slow enough, Flaherty could have taken his time but another bad throw gave us  another run.

Jays of the Day? McGowan had a .356 WPA and even though I thought he got pretty lucky, I'm going to give him a JoD. Let's also give one to Cecil (.182) and Santos (.095). Fangraphs gives Lind a .100, but that was for hitting the ball that Schoop made the error on, so no JoD for him.

No Suckage Jays. Maybe give one to the offense as a whole, though Chris Tillman pitched a great game.

The Ryan Goins watch? He was 0 for 3, with 3 strikeouts.

Tomorrow Drew Hutchison tries to bounce back from his terrible start against the Yankees. Bud Norris starts for the O's. His first start of the season was pretty bad, 5 innings, 9 hits, 5 earned, with 2 k. I hope we can lay a similar beating on him.

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