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A 5-run 4th inning helps the Blue Jays to a win

By Tom Dakers
Ken Blaze-USA TODAY Sports

Blue Jays 5 Indians 1

Another game, another great catch by Kevin Pillar.

That was a strange game, for three innings we couldn't make any decent contact off of TJ House. In those 3 innings we had 9 soft ground ball outs, not one of them had a chance to be a hit. Then, in the 4th, it seemed the guys figured out House. Jose Bautista started the inning with a walk and then we followed with 4 very hard hits, 2 singles and 2 doubles and House was out of the game.

The nicest plate appearance of the inning mayhave been Jonathan Diaz' suicide squeeze bunt. The pitch was up and in, but Diaz managed to get his bat above it, knock it down and Pillar scored easy.

Daniel Norris, on the other hand, had a ton of trouble over the first three innings, giving up 4 hits and 2 walks, and seemingly going to 3 balls on every batter,  but, he was able to get out of trouble each inning. In the second inning he loaded the bases with 1 out, but got a pop out and a fly out to get out of the inning. In the 3rd, he gave up consecutive singles, threw a wild pitch and still didn't allow a run. But, after the 3 innings and  78 pitches, and a long time sitting on a cold bench while we scored our 5 runs, Gibby decided not to test his luck for another inning.

The bullpen did their job tonight, over 6 innings:

  • Jeff Francis went 2.1 allowing 3 hits, 1 earned, with 3 strikeouts. He's looked much better than I expected out of the pen. He was helped out by the Pillar catch that saved him at least 1 run.
  • Roberto Osuna gave us 1.2 scoreless innings, with just 1 hit and 2 strikeouts.
  • Aaron Loup gave up 2 hits, in his inning, but got out of things with the help of a nice double play.
  • Brett Cecil pitched the 9th, got beat on a bunt single to start off the inning, but got Mike Aviles to hit into a double play to end the game.
If I was Gibby, I'd have had Castro pitch the 9th. Up by 4, it would have been a good chance to have him pitch in a much more relaxed spot than most of the times he's been out there. Perhaps Gibby wants him to have a couple more days off.

We had our share of excellent defensive plays. Jonathan Diaz made 2 very nice plays at short. Josh Donaldson made a great bare handed pickup and throw on a slow bouncer. And, of course, Pillar had the great catch.

On the worrisome side, Devon Travis had a hard line drive hit right at him, it bounced 6 or 7 feet in front of him and came up and hit him hard.  He took it in the chest or shoulder area. The next time up at bat it looked like he was hurting on every swing his next time up at bat.

I'm getting a run time error when I try to look at FanGraphs, so lets give JoDs to Francis, Edwin Encarnacion (2 for 4), Russell Martin (1 for 2, 2 walks) and Osuna. Honorable mention to Diaz for the Suicide Squeeze and nice defense and Pillar for that great catch. I'll fix the JoD when I can get on to the FanGraphs site.

FanGraphs is up....Norris has the number for a JoD (.146) but I can't give him on for that performance. The only other Jay with the number is Martin (.135). I'm still giving one to Francis, and Edwin (.088) but we'll add Osuna to the honor mention group.

No Suckage tonight.

We had a very pleasant GameThread tonight. 801 comments. I led us to victory. Yay me.

# Commenter # Comments
1 Tom Dakers 131
2 Belisarius 74
3 MjwW 71
4 stressed 59
5 jaysfan100 55
6 jmarples 48
7 radivel 39
8 T-Ball 36
9 MegamanBN5 35
10 Pikachu 33
11 ice_hawk10 25
12 Alan F. 25
13 Gibbons' Finest 24
14 jimitwist 19
15 fishedin 12
16 Pauley 11

Oh, and go Flames.

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