Tough Jays debut for Mark Lowe, Jays lose to Royals

Royals 7   Blue Jays 6

The new guy had a rough day.

It's tough, I hated that trade, but Mark Lowe is a better pitcher than that. The Ben Zobrist home run was crushed, after that he had some bad luck on balls in play. He didn't impress, but I gotta give him a mulligan here, as much as I really wanted this game.

Mark Buehrle had a good start, marred by a bad inning. He gave up a solo Zobrist homer in the first. Then, in the 6th, Mark made an error on a ground ball, then gave up a double to, guess who, Zobrist (nice diving effort by Jose Bautista came up just short). He hit Lorenzo Cain, and gave up back-to-back singles to Eric Hosmer and Kendrys Morales to turn his 4 run lead into a 1-run lead. Just when I thought Gibby was going to pull him (or should have pulled him), he got Sal Perez to hit into a inning ending double play.

Then, he pitches a perfect 7th. In all, 7 innings, 5 hits, 4 runs, 3 earned, 0 walks, 3 strikeouts.

We had a shot to tie it in the 9th, after Jose Bautista homered (for the second time today) (and Edwin followed by hitting one to the wall in dead center) to make it a 1-run game again. In the 9th, Troy Tulowitzki (pinch hitting) took a 1-out walk, Chris Colabello (pinch hitting) singled to right, but Ben Revere and Josh Donaldson each ground out.

Before that, the offense did it's job, we scored:

• 2 in the 4th: 4 consectutive 2-out singles by Bautista, Encarancion, Smoak and Navarro.
• 3 in the 5th: Walk to Ryan Goins and back-to-back home runs by Donaldson and Bautista.
• 1 in the 8th: Bautista's second home run of the day (it would be really nice if he could got on a hot streak).

We had 8 hits on the day, 3 for Bautista. Our other newest Jay had a rough day, Revere went 0 for 5, though he hit the ball hard a couple of times. Pillar and Munenori Kawasaki also had 0 fors. So did Goins, but he took that walk so I won't get on him.

Jays of the Day: Bautista (.220 WPA, great game), Colabello (.125, for his 9th inning pinch hit single) and Tulo (.097 for his 9th inning pinch hit walk).

Suckage: Lowe (-.589), Revere (-.228) and Pillar (-.170, though he battled in his 9th inning at bat).

We had 1108 comments in the GameThread. Pikachu won out in a very very tight race.