It looked like we were going to be no-hit. Anibal Sanchez made it to 1-out in the 8th before Ezequiel Carrera got our first hit, a kind of line drive that fell in front of the Tigers left fielder, Yoenis Cespedes. Devon Travis followed with our second hit. Ryan Goins followed that with our third hit, driving in our first run. That finally got Sanchez out of the game, after 117 pitches. Sanchez was 5 outs from a no-hitter, and his final line was 7.1 innings, 3 hits, 4 earned, 3 walks and 5 strikeouts. Things can change in a hurry when you face the Blue Jays.
Josh Donaldson drove in 2 more with another single and we started to have some hope that we'd make a comeback. Jose Bautista walked, to load the bases again. Edwin Encarnacion popped out to center, but Dioner Navarro doubled to clear the bases and suddenly it was 8-6 and we had the tying run at the plate. But, after a walk to Justin Smoak, Kevin Pillar hit a soft fly out.
It did give us a shot in the 9th. We were just two runs down, but Carrera tried to bunt for a base hit and was out easy. Devon Travis struck out. But, just after I said you have to pinch hit for Goins, he singled to bring up Josh Donaldson as the tying run. Unfortunately Donaldson struck out.
Baseball is a game where, people say, that you can see something you've never seen before, at any given game.
Well, tonight was one of those nights. We saw:
- a 4-1-5 double play in the first inning. With Miguel Cabrera on first, Victor Martinez hit a grounder near first that bounced over Smoak, but Travis was there, and threw it to Drew Hutchison covering first. With the shift against Martinez, no body was covering third base (it was catcher Dioner Navarro's responsibility to cover, but, like many many Jays tonight, he wasn't exactly focused). So Cabrera went for third. Hutchison threw to Donaldson, who chased Cabrera to third. Cabrera got there first, but he slide into the bag with his left, popped up with his right foot on the bag and then switched feet, stepping off with the right and on with the left. Right at the moment of change, Donaldson tagged him. Maybe the most impressive thing about the play was that Drew hit a running Donaldson with the throw, leading him nicely, like a quarterback throwing to a receiver. Also impressive was that the third base ump picked up on it.
- And, less fun, Carrera made throwing errors on back-to-back plays. I'm sure I've never seen an outfielder make throwing errors on consecutive plays before. With bases loaded and 1 out, Nick Castellanos hit a line drive to left. Carrera, for reasons that defy explanation, decided to dive for the ball (I didn't think he needed too) and the ball went in his glove and then out of his glove when he hit the ground. Ezequiel got up, found the ball and threw to third. Well, saying he threw to third isn't quiet true, he threw well wide of third. Hutchison, who should have been backing up the throw at third was watching the play from near the mound. On what should have been an sac fly, 2 runs scored and the Tigers had runners at second and third. Next hitter, Anthony Gose, single to Carrera, who threw the ball back to the infield, deftly avoiding all the fielders. 2 more runs score and Gose ended up on third, to score on a sac fly. Tigers scored 5 in the inning. Carrera hadn't made an error in the majors since 2012 and he gets 2 in one inning.
-
We also had a third throwing error, a pretty stupid one. Victor Martinez hit one to center, Pillar tried to get him at second but Travis cut the throw (I'm not sure, maybe Jose Reyes told him to, then he turned and threw towards Reyes at second, but he was too close to make that sort of throw and it got past Reyes, Martinez moved up to third. I'm sure that if he tried to score we would have thrown it away again.
We had 989 comments, surprising since it looked like the game was going to be over early. DangYouToHeck led us in a losing cause.
# | Commenter | # Comments |
---|---|---|
1 | DangYouToHeck | 104 |
2 | Alan F. | 100 |
3 | T-Ball | 100 |
4 | lalalaprise | 98 |
5 | Tom Dakers | 87 |
6 | Belisarius | 84 |
7 | Diamond_D86 | 68 |
8 | MjwW | 56 |
9 | Pikachu | 52 |
10 | Shift | 46 |
11 | BigBangBear | 23 |
12 | JoseDee4 | 23 |
13 | Drinkin' Wit' Terrell Farley | 21 |
14 | fishedin | 20 |
15 | Mike Hannah | 10 |
16 | bryfryy | 10 |
17 | red hot blues | 10 |