Great start from Marcus Stroman, Jays beat Cardinals

Cardinals 1 Blue Jays 3

Yet another game that was much closer than it should have been. We loaded the bases in the 1st and 4th innings. Anthony Gose tripled in the 2nd and we didn't score him. And we loaded the bases again in the 6th inning and Jose Bautista lined one hard into a triple play.

That triple play was just sad.

But Jose Bautisa and Brett Lawrie hit solo homers and that's all we needed.

But we did get insurance in the 8th. Brett Lawrie and Dioner Navarro singled, giving us runners on the corners. Kevin Pillar pinch ran for Navarro and, after an Anthony Gose strikeout, Jose Reyes singled home Brett. We almost got more. Melky hit a one hopper to a second basemen playing in and Pillar was out at the plate. And then, Bautista missed a home run by a couple of feet, but ground out after.

Marcus Stroman was a little shaky the first couple of innings, but only allowed a single run in the first. Marcus went 6 innings, allowed 7 hits, 2 walks, 1 earned and had 7 strikeouts. 3 or 4 of the hits were of the seeing eye type, just missing gloves. He was helped by Bautista making an incredible throw to get Matt Holliday out at the plate. And Brett Lawrie made a great jump, turn, throw to get Yadier Molina, on a ground ball hit to Lawrie's right.

Brett Cecil, walked a man, then got one out in the 7th and Dustin McGowan came in and got the next 5 out. He looks so much better in relief. And Casey Janssen got the save, without allowing a base runner, despite a fan getting in Bautista's way making a catch. After an appeal, the umpires (in New York) ruled fan interference. If I was the Cardinals' manager, I'd have gone nuts. It wasn't an easy call, Bautista was still moving, but he would have made the catch. Casey needed more pitches than his last couple of saves.

Jays of the Day are Stroman (.189 WPA), McGowan (.294), Reyes (.195) and Lawrie (.121).

Suckage, well Bautista has the number (-106), mostly on the power of that triple play. Hardly far cause he hit the ball so hard. I'm not giving him suckage, because the WPA numbers don't take into account that terrific throw. So let's give it to Edwin (-.143, on an 1 for 4 day) and Francisco (-.130 on an 0 for 3).

Source: FanGraphs

Great GameThreads again tonight. I figured we'd be talked out after the draft threads of the last couple of days, but we had 2,057 comments. Kraemer_17 gritty out a win. Almost lapping the field.