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Despite Josh Donaldson's 9th inning homer, Jays lose in extras

John E. Sokolowski-USA TODAY Sports

White Sox 5 Blue Jays 3 (10 innings)

That one hurts.

After Josh Donaldson played hero, tying the game with a home run in the bottom of the 9th, we hoped for another walk off win.

Unfortunately, Roberto Osuna just didn't have it. He came into the game in the top of the 10th and gave up some hard hits. He gave up a leadoff, hard hit ball off the right field wall, which Danny Valencia misplayed, turning a  Jose Abreu double into a triple. In the end the misplay didn't matter.  Andy LaRoche followed that with a single to right that gave the White Sox the go ahead run. A Gordon Beckham double put us down by 2. Osuna has been so good that we can forgive him an off night.

We did have a chance in the bottom of the inning. Chris Colabello hit a 1-out single and Josh Thole followed with a walk, giving us the tying run at first. Unfortunately Kevin Pillar couldn't connect bat and ball, taking a strikeout. And Danny Valencia ground out to short. Valencia was robbed on a strike call just before the pitch he ground out on, ball was clearly low (right where the pitch before had been called a ball), but called a strike. Changed the count from 3-1 to 2-2 making things much tougher for him.

Marco Estrada pitched a great game. 7 innings, 8 hits, 3 earned, no walks with 2 strikeouts. With some help from his defense, he might have had a shutout. In the top of the 3rd, with 2 on and 2 out, he got Jose Abreu to hit a weak fly to right, but Ezequiel Carrera lost it in the sun...he was right underneath it, and it almost landed in his glove by luck, but instead of an easy out and us out of the inning, it is ruled a 2-run double giving Marco 2 earned runs. And, in the 6th inning, with a runner on 2nd, a soft fly falls in front of Keven Pillar in center, and Pillar had the bounce go off his glove, allowing the runner from 2nd to score easy. If he had made the catch on the hop, he might have been able to throw out the runner going home. Marco deserved better from his defense and he deserved more offensive support too.

Aaron Loup and Brett Cecil each pitched a scoreless inning of relief.

Down 3-0 at start of the 7th, we scored a run in each of the 7th, 8th and 9th:

  • In the 7th, Pillar and Ryan Goins started us off with singles. An out and a passed ball later, Donaldson hit a sac fly keeping out streak of not being shut out all season going.
  • In the 8th, consecutive singles by Russell Martin, Colabello and Justin Smoak got our run.
  • And then the Donaldson home run in the 9th. Donaldson is amazing.

We did get the fun of seeing Martin playing second, when pinch hitting moves left us short middle infielders. He did get an assist on the one play he got in on.

Jays of the Day: Donaldson (.331 WPA), Smoak (.152, off his pinch hit single) and Colabello (.123 on a 3 for 5 day).

Suckage: Osuna (-.410), Valencia (-.232, not counting the misplay in the 10th), Edwin (-.179), Pillar (-122), Bautista (-.119) and Carrera for the ball lost in the sun.

We had 909 in the GameThreads, a lot for a weekday day game. Pikachu led us in a losing cause.

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