We needed that. Jays beat Indians

Blue Jays 3 Indians 2

When that ball was hit so hard down the first base line, I thought we lost. Thank you so much Edwin.

Scariest bottom of the ninth ever. Sergio Santos back in, after yesterdays awfulness. First batter, Lonnie Chisenhall, slices one deep to left field. (A) Melky Cabrera should have been playing further back. (B) He should have made the play anyway, he was slow getting back on the ball. It wasn't that tough a play.

Thank goodness Terry Francona is a fool, he had Michael Bourne try to bunt. He couldn't and ended up striking out. That, as it turns out, saved us. Sergio got Nick Swisher out on strikes, on 3 very nice pitches. Then he walked Jason Kipnis and walked Carlos Santana. Bases loaded, but Michael Brantley ground one, very hard, but right at Edwin Encarnacion. Thank you so much.

Other than that? Drew Hutchison gave us a nice start. He ran out of gas very suddenly, in the 6th inning. He gave up a single, homer and a triple before Gibby got him out of there. In his first 5 innings he had allowed just 5 hits, 0 walks and had 9 strikeouts. Too bad we didn't get him more runs. He did throw a lot of pitches, coming out after his 100th pitch.

The pen did well:

• Steve Delabar got the last two outs of the 6th, without allowing the runner on third to score.
• Brett Cecil gave up a hit and walk, but had 2 strikeouts in his inning.
• Neil Wagner had a clear 8th, even though the outs were flies to the outfield.
• And you already know about Santos, who seems determined to turn me totally gray.

On offense, we did just enough. 9 hits, 4 of them off the bat of Melky Cabrera, who has hits in all but one of our games.

We got a run in the 4th when Brett Lawrie followed Colby Rasmus' double with a single. And two more in the 7th. Ryan Goins walked, Melky Cabrera singled and Gibby went against form by letting Munenori swing away (I'm tired of the early game bunts) and Muni singled home a run. After Jose Bautista was intentionally walks, Edwin came through with a soft single to center, bringing in our game winning run. Thanks again Edwin.

Jays of the Day? All the relievers, Santos (.191 WPA), Wagner (.137), Cecil (.105) and Delabar (.097). And Melky (.262 for the 4 for 5), Kawasaki (.099) and I'm giving one to Edwin, because of the RBI and because, if he hadn't made that play at the end of the game, I'd have thrown this laptop. Also Terry Francona gets one, by popular demand, for the idiot idea (if you were an Indians fan, brilliant idea for us Jays fans) to bunt with the runner on second and no one out in the 9th. If I owned the team, he would have been fired mid-inning.

Suckage? Well, Hutchison had the number (-.128) but I can't give him one, if the team had scored a few runs, his number would have been much better. Let's go with Dioner Navarro (-.223, 0 for 4 and the 'double play' tapper with the bases loaded) and Moises Sierra (-.107, 0 for 4 with 3 k) who looks lost at the plate.

Tomorrow afternoon Mark Buehrle starts for the Jays. He has 3 wins in 3 starts and a 0.86 ERA. He's been a bit lucky but we'll take it. Corey Kldber, 1-1, 5.40 pitches against a Jays team that should have Jose Reyes and Juan Francisco in the lineup. Let's have a complete game laugher. Score 15 or so.

Our GameThread started slow (since most Jays fans jumped off bridges last night), but built up to a pretty reasonable 997 comments. I led the way again. Thats two wins for me this season.