That Kind of Sucked: Jays Lose to Orioles

Blue Jays 3, Orioles 5

I was kind of hoping for a reason to re-write the recap. Unfortunately, the late rally from the Jays fell short, and the Jays' mini-streak comes to an end at 3.

That was a frustrating game. Mark Buehrle cruised for the most part and pitched himself out of jams when bad defense and bloops off the O's bats tried to do him in. Would have been nice to give him a win for that effort, but so it goes.

The game started off real ugly; Chris Colabello misplayed a deeply hit, but certainly playable, flyball out from Manny Machado into a double. Machado easily could have taken 3rd, but didn't run out of the gate and settled for a double. The run ended up scoring anyway, but Buehrle limited the damage to just 1 run.

Jays got the run right back in the bottom of the first thanks to Jose Reyes' leadoff double. They had a chance for more (this turned out to be a theme for the game), but only came away with a run off a sac fly from Edwin Encarnacion.

The bottom of the second gave the Jays another run, but most of us will agree that they, again, should have scored more. Jays took a 2-1 lead on a wild pitch from Kevin Gausman, and a dribbler single from Kevin Pillar put runners on first and third, 0 outs. Then came 3 straight pop-up outs from Ryan Goins, Reyes, and Josh Donaldson to put a quick end to the inning.

Orioles tied it up again in the top of the 6th with a sac fly to LF from Delmon Young scoring Machado. It was shallow enough that a regular ol' left fielder would and should have gotten the out at home, but Colabello took too long to get the ball out of his hands and didn't get enough on the throw, which is unfortunately since the throw itself was surprisingly accurate.

With 2 outs in the bottom of the inning, Martin managed to double off the wall in LF, all while breaking his bat. The Orioles decided to intentionally walk Dioner Navarro to face Pillar, who promptly struck out on 3 pitches. Chaz Roe, who came in to relieve Gausman in this inning, had incredible movement on his pitches, and even to my untrained eye his slider looked like at least a plus offering.

Then came the bottom of the 8th, when Everyone's Favourite Oriole Darren O'Day was brought in to face Bautista. Of course, Bautista reached with a single, and after a bloop hit from Encarnacion and a walk from Ezequiel Carrera, the Jays had the bases juiced with 0 outs. And nothing came of it; O'Day struck out the next 3 batters.

The 9th was ugly. Aaron Loup, who has been rather on-point recently, allowing 0 hits in his past 9 outings, looked like he was going to get out of the inning with no damage. Chris Davis, the leadoff batter, lined a single over the shift to left, but Loup struck out Nolan Reimold and got Hardy to ground into a fielder's choice. He then proceeded to give up a free baserunner by hitting Ryan Flaherty in the side. With 2 outs and runners on first and second, Caleb Joseph lined a single up the middle that scored Hardy and Loup, who was so close to getting out with no damage, was relieved by, who else, Ryan Tepera. Tepera immediately gave up a double to Machado to put the Jays down 5-2 before getting a groundball out to short.

The Jays did put up a rally in the bottom of the inning, getting 1 run out of it before Encarnacion grounded into a double play to end the game. Fun fact: the two teams combined for 4 runs in the first 8 innings. They combined for 4 in the 9th alone.

That was a tough one to swallow. Jays didn't exactly outhit the Orioles, but having the bases loaded and getting 0 runs out of it is a bit pathetic, and not expected from the best offense in the majors. A lot of folks will be looking to blame Loup and the bullpen for this loss, I'm sure.

WE Graph

Source: FanGraphs

JOD: Buehrle (.181), Osuna (.106). No one else had the number but I'll give one to Bautista (.074) for some timely hits off O'Day and Britton.

Suckage: Loup (-.343) is the biggest offender here, as is Tepera (-.116). Among the batters, Pillar (-.153) and Goins (-.110) had the number. Colabello (-.056) deserves a special mention here for his play on the field. Not entirely his fault he plays out of position, but eh.