Morrow walks 8, Jays lose to Red Sox

Red Sox 7 Blue Jays 6

You had to know that things weren't going to work out, when, first batter of the game, Morrow throws 4 strikes (all called balls) and gives up a walk. It got uglier from there. Morrow was terrible, and didn't get any help from the plate umpire. He was wild and when he wasn't, he wasn't getting the calls. 8 walks and 0 hits against, in 2.2 innings. And, when he left the game, with the bases loaded, he had a shutout going.

It didn't last long.

Gibby brought Chad Jenkins in. Gibby likes Jenkins, but this was the wrong move. Jenkins gave up the grand slam and then a solo homer, before getting out of the inning. Jenkins would give up another run in the 5th.

The offense tried. We scored 3 in the first. Jose Reyes walked, Melky Cabrera singled, Jose Bautista singled, then a wild pitch and a Dioner Navarro single and we had a 3-0 lead.

Then in the 8th, down 7-3, Juan Francisco hit his first Blue Jays homer. Singles by Colby Rasmus, Brett Lawrie and Edwin Encarnacion (pinch hitting) scored one. After Jonathan Diaz, pinch hitting, struck out, we had the bases loaded, 2-out and Melky up. But he hit a soft fly out and we were down 7-5 going into the 9th.

Jose Bautista homered to start the inning. 7-6. Francisco struck out. Navarro singled (no pinch runners left). Rasmus struck out (showing bunt at one pitch, dumb move). Lawrie singles (runners on the corners, 2 out).  Then Edwin hit a hard line drive. I thought he won the game for a moment, but it wasn't far enough over the head of center fielder, Jackie Bradley.

We had some great defense. Two terrific double plays to keep Morrow in the game, in the first two innings. We also got to see Juan Francisco at third base and Brett Lawrie at second (I hope that doesn't happen too often).

Jays of the Day: Navarro (.205 WPA) and Bautista (.188),

Suckage: Jenkins (-.476), Diaz (-.119 for that 1 strikeout), Cabrera (-.118), Colby (-.105). I'm giving one to Morrow too, he was only -.017 WPA, but, man, 8 walks and 8 outs. He was the victim of a bad strike zone (I'll let Gerse count the bad calls) but he was also wild.

We had a very impressive 1463 comments in our game thread, considering how depressing most of the game was. I'm always amazed at how decent people are, in our threads, even when games are bad and we are, very understandably, in bad moods. Thanks all. Kraemer_17 led the way with 156 comments. Great job.