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Blue Jays 10, Yankees 7 (boxscore)
After completing their extra-inning rout of the Yankees earlier today, the Jays took the field under dark clouds a bit past 6 PM local time. The final out of the game was recorded a few minutes before 10:30 PM local time. We were treated to roughly 9 hours of baseball today, give or take with the brief rain delay in the second game. I don't want to say that was too much time for baseball, but I'm really glad the Jays play in a dome.
Despite the dreary weather, the second game was enjoyable, largely due to the fact that 1) the Jays beat the Yankees, and 2) Marcus Stroman.
Stroman was not, by any means, masterful. We have definitely seen better from him. But, for the first start after a major knee surgery facing a rather powerful offense, I doubt we could have asked for much better. Stroman worked 5 innings, allowing 3 runs on 4 hits (including a long 3-run homer to Our Favourite Bald Yankee, Brett Gardner) and 2 walks while striking out 2. While that line itself is not extremely impressive, his pitches were moving all over the place and he was quite efficient. Furthermore, Stroman induced 12 groundballs to 4 flyballs and 1 line drive. I would assume he has answered the question on whether should be put in the rotation or not. Stroman exited the game as the rain delay began, but considering he was nearing 80 pitches, it wasn't likely he was going much longer than 5 innings.
On the other end of the ball, the Jays continued their destruction of Yankee pitchers, scoring 6 runs in the second inning and leading the game 6-3 before the tarps were brought on the field. Cliff Pennington, the starter at 2B tonight taking over for the injured Troy Tulowitzki, highlighted the second inning with a 2-run homer to RF off of Ivan Nova. It wasn't a cheapie, either, going several rows deep past the fence.
But things got a wee-bit tenser after the rain delay. As most of the better bullpen arms were used in the first 2 games of the series, Gibbons went to the B-squad to get through the rest of the game. Bo Schultz started off the 6th inning, and only retired 1 batter while allowing 2 runners to reach. Aaron Loup followed to face Didi Gregorius, and promptly allowed a run scoring double, letting the Yankees creep closer. But Loup did manage to keep the score at 6-4.
The Jays immediately added on some insurance runs, scoring 4 runs in the top of the 7th. With the score at 10-4, John Gibbons brought out the mop-up man, Jeff Francis, to go eat up the low-leverage innings. Francis worked through the Yankees lineup in the 7th without trouble. The 8th was a different story, as Francis managed to retire 2 but allowed a 3-run shot to, who else, Brett Gardner to make the score 10-7. Steve Delabar was brought in to retire the last batter of the 8th, and, though he did allow a hit to Carlos Beltran before doing so, he struck out Brian McCann to send the game to the 9th.
Thankfully, the 9th was almost entirely stress-free. The Jays bats were retired in order in the top of the 9th by James Pazos (?), and Mark Lowe took care of the bottom of the 9th in the same manner.
And thus, through the gruling day of baseball, the Jays have taken 3 of the 4 games, and go for the 4-game sweep tomorrow.
WE Graph:
Source: FanGraphs
JOD: Pennington (.136), Revere (.121), Goins (.110). Stroman didn't have the number, but I can't NOT give him one here.
Suckage: None!
Roll Call: