Three home runs and good pitching, Jays beat Tigers

Tigers 3 Blue Jays 5

After the offense taking a day off yesterday, tonight's game was a lot more fun.

We had solo home runs from the top three in the lineup. Back-to-back shots from Troy Tulowitzki and Josh Donaldson in the 3rd inning and Jose Bautista in the 5th. Donaldson's was crushed, off the facing of the fifth deck.

And we got a couple of runs on the non-homer variety. In the first inning Bautista took a 2-out walk and came home on Edwin Encarnacion'  double. Edwin took the suspense out of the hitting streak, which is now at 23 games. And we got 1 more run in the 4th, we loaded the bases, with no outs, Kevin Pillar singled, Ben Revere walked and Ryan Goins singled. It looked like we might score a few, but Josh Thole hit into a double play, scoring the run and Tulowitzki lined out hard to left. He can't seem to buy a break.

We had 9 hits and 5 walks, so, with the 3 home runs, you would have expected more scoring. Bautista and Pillar had 2 hits each. All of the starters had a hit expect for Thole (0 for 2 before being pinch hit for, after  R.A. Dickey came out of the game) and Chris Colabello (0 for 4 with 2 strikeouts, he had a tough night).

R.A. had a good start. He gave up a solo homer in the first, to Ian Kinsler and then a 2-run homer with 2 out in the 6, to Anthony Gose. Between the 2 home runs, he allowed just 1 hit and 1 walk with 6 strikeouts. All-in-all a good job. It would have been nice if he would have gotten that 3rd out of the 7th.

Our bullpen did their usual great job. Mark Lowe got the last out of the 7th, a strikeout. Aaron Sanchez pitched a clean 8th, with the help of an amazing play by Tulo. And Roberto Osuna struck out the side, in the 9th, for his16th save. He went 3-0 to the first batter, then threw 9 strikes to strikeout the side.

There was some great defense. Ryan Goins made a great play early in the game and Troy made a great play of his own in the 8th, going a long way to his right and making a jump throw that Justin Smoak did a nice jump digging out.

Former Jay Matt Boyd didn't look terrible, but he gave up those 3 home runs. He had a really impressive slow curve.

Jays of the Day: Dickey (.117 WPA) and Edwin (.130). Let's give honorable mention to Donaldson, Tulo, Bautista and the 3 relievers.

No one had the Suckage number, Colabello had the low mark with -.082.

We had a slower night in the GameThread, it was a pretty fast moving game. Just 900 comments. Pikachu led us to victory again.