Ryan Goins homers, Blue Jays win 11th straight

A's 2   Blue Jays 4

Every day it is a different 'big bat' that comes through for us. Today it was the power bat of Ryan Goins that did the job. In the 2nd inning, after singles from Dioner Navarro, Justin Smoak and Kevin Pillar (driving in our first run of the day), Goins pulled a Jesse Chavez pitch over the right field wall.

That's Ryan's 4th home run of the season and brings him up to 31 RBI.

And we had another great start from Mark Buehrle. 7 innings, 7 hits, 2 earned (though if Pillar didn't play that single into a triple in the 8th, he might not have had any runs against), 2 walks and 2 strikeouts. He was helped out by a couple of nice double plays.

In the first inning, it looked like it might not be his day. The A's leadoff man, Billy Burns, drove one down the third base line. It was ruled fair on the field, but after a long review, they called it foul. To me, the replay was too close to call, but I'm happy New York decided it was foul. Burns ended up walking. Then Mark Canha popped one to center. Kevin Pillar lost in the sun and it dropped for a single. Then Brett Lawrie hit one deep to right, Jose Bautista, running back to the track, got a glove on it, but couldn't hold it.

Buehrle's luck changed after that. He got a ground ball back to the mound, for a 1, 2, 3 double play. That was followed by another ground ball that Mark deflected with his pitching hand (don't do that) and but new Jay Cliff Pennington made a great play on, changing direction and making a good throw to first.

After that, all went well, until the 8th inning. Mark gave up a single to center and then Burns hit a sinking line drive to center that Pillar made a dive at, but missed by a lot and Burns ended up on third. Bad decision by Pillar That was the game for Buehrle..

Aaron Sanchez came in and got 3 quick outs.

Roberto Osuna pitched the 9th for his 12th save of the year. Jose Bautista helped with a nice catch at the wall, but then he couldn't get to the next one that was just over him for a double. The third out was another hard hit ball to right that Bautista caught.

We only had 6 hits, and no walks, on the day, but, with Ryan's homer, that was enough. Today's leadoff man, Ben Revere had 2 of them. Dioner Navarro, Justin Smoak, Pillar and Goins had 1 each.

We had some nice plays on defense today, but this one by Pennington was, I thought,  the best.

Jays of the Day are Goins (.176 WPA) and Buehrle (.158). I'm giving honorable mention to Sanchez for his great work in the 8th. No Suckage Jays.

We had a pretty amazing 1159 comments, for a Thursday afternoon game. DangYouToHeck led us to victory. Great job.