Blue Jays get good pitching (honest) and beat Yankees

Yankees 1 Blue Jays 5

Just when I was thinking that Mark Buehrle should be going on the DL, he goes out and throws a great game. He only went 5 innings, I'd imagine that has something to do with the aches and pains that he's apparently battling through, but they were his best 5 innings of the season. He allowed 6 hits (one of them likely should have been caught by Chris Colabello in left and another should have been caught by Kevin Pillar), 1 walk and had 3 strikeouts. He gave up a run in the first inning, but that was it.

Mark helped himself out with his glove, making a nice play in the 3rd. With a runner on 2nd, he picked up a grounder and caught the runner off the bag at second, throwing behind him, getting a  1-6-5 fielders choice.

Roberto Osuna pitched the 6th, 7th and the first out of the 8th, allowing just a single and a walk. I don't know why Gibby pulled him after the first out in the 8th. Normally you like the new reliever to start the inning but all worked out.

Aaron Loup got the last 2 outs of the 8 and Brett Cecil pitched the 9th, giving up a walk and getting a strikeout. No save, but with the day off tomorrow, I'm ok with Gibby using his closer.

On offense, we did more than enough (considering the rare good pitching performance). We had 12 hits in all. Chris Colabello  was 4 for 4. He looked great at the plate (if terrible in the field). Russell Martin was 3 for 4, with a home run. Kevin Pillar had 2 hits, including a very nice bunt single, in front of the less than agile, CC Sabathia. Josh Donaldson, Ezequeil Carerra and Ryan Goins (a hard hit RBI triple in the 8th) had the other hits.

Other good news is that Edwin Encarnacion looked much better at the plate, he worked a nice walk in the first, and hit the ball hard (if into outs) his other at bats. Jose Bautista took a base on balls too, but doesn't seem to be quite right at the plate. In part, it's the crappy calls he's getting on pitches off the plate.

Jays of the Day are Buehrle (.168 WPA), Osuna (.133, really a great job in relief) and Colabello (.228). I'm giving an honorable mention to Martin.

Suckage, well no quite made it to the number. Travis was closest at -.088 but he started a very nice double play in the 7th. He hasn't looked good at the plate for the past few days. He's still working counts, but is swinging at off speed stuff, low and outside, way too much. Goins had a -.076, but was part of double play with Travis and made a nice play and a long throw, from deep in the hole at short, in the 9th inning.

We didn't get our amazing Kevin Pillar catch of the day, so I feel ripped off. Kevin actually let a catchable fly drop in front of him, when he took his first step back on a soft fly.

The Jays get an off-day tomorrow before a weekend series with the Red Sox.

We had 944 comments in a very nice GameThread. A very pleasant time in the thread. Winning has something to do with it, I'm sure. Pikachu led us to victory.  Great job sir.