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That was an abomination of a baseball game. In a matter of a few minutes, Drew Hutchison's outing went to heck in a handbasket and the Blue Jays never recovered. Despite Joe Kelly looking hittable, when he actually decided to throw a pitch that is, the team struggled to put runs on the board and fell too far behind early thanks to some horrible pitching by the aforementioned Hutchison and Steve Delabar.
The Blue Jays had an opportunity to get something going early in the first inning when Josh Donaldson smacked a Joe Kelly offering to left field but a quick throw by Rusney Castillo got the MVP-candidate at second. After that early excitement, the game chugged along with no further hits until the bottom of the third. With two outs, Mookie Betts stepped up to the plate for his second at bat of the game and launched a Drew Hutchison fastball off the top of the Green Monster. The play looked extremely similar to the Josh Donaldson triple from last night and this time the players reacted like the ball was still in play. The difference was that Betts' ball cleared the line on top of the Monster and actually ricocheted off the facing in front of the spectators. The play was reviewed and rightly ruled a home run. Things started to unravel for Hutchison after this, with the righty losing the strike zone and rushing things a wee bit. Dustin Pedroia followed up the Betts smash with a single before Xander Bogaerts kept the two-out rally going with a single of his own. Next up was David Ortiz and...yea:
That made it 4-0 before Hutchison got out of the inning with a strikeout. It was a shame that it all fell apart so quickly for Hutchison as he had looked good up until that point, burying his sliders in the dirt and keeping the Red Sox hitters off balance.
It was time for the Red Sox to worry about their starter in the next half-inning as Joe Kelly had a pitch get away from him and appeared to injury himself. The righty shook off medical attention and promptly gave up a single to Ben Revere, who was leading off the inning. After Donaldson flied out, Jose Bautista drew a walk to put two men on for Edwin Encarnacion. Kelly challenged the slugger with three fastballs before dropping a slider in the zone that EE pulled into left field to score Revere and cut the lead to 4-1 Red Sox. Troy Tulowitzki followed and laid off a number of Kelly fastballs as well until the shortstop grounded a changeup softly to third base. Boston was only able to get the out at second, though, putting runners at the corners with two outs for Chris Colabello. The Jays first baseman took a 96 mph heater to the hand which looked to pinch his skin where he was holding the bat. A delayed reaction elicited protests from the Red Sox bench that Colabello wasn't actually hit, but the umpires got it right and the bases were loaded for Russell Martin. The way this was written makes it seem that it all leads up to a Russell Martin grand slam, but it doesn't. It ended with a three-pitch strikeout. I'm sorry. I was disappointed too. It was about to get a whole lot worse.
The bottom of the fourth brought more grief for Blue Jays fans as Rusney Castillo smacked a double into the left field gap that could have been caught by Kevin Pillar but he overran it in spectacular fashion. Next, Ryan Hanigan doubled down the first base line to make it 5-1 and that was all for Drew Hutchison. Aaron Loup came in to face Jackie Bradley Jr. and did his job by striking him out on a low slider. John Gibbons showed that he's finally learned how to effectively use Loup as the southpaw was quickly lifted in favour of Liam Hendriks to face the righty Mookie Betts. The move didn't pan out however as Betts smacked ANOTHER ball to the monster, thankfully this one stayed in play and ended up as a double scoring Hanigan. I began to regret offering to do the recap for a game that was starting to look like it may not be done by midnight. Pedroia made the final out of the inning to make it 6-1 after four frames.
The final line on Hutchison was 3.1 innings with six earned runs on six hits along with three strikeouts and two walks. With the dismal outing, it all but signalled to the Blue Jays front office that the righty won't be able to get it done down the stretch and he may not get another chance to change their minds with the return of Marcus Stroman.
Steve Delabar came into the game in the bottom half of the fifth inning and managed to do a worse job than Hutchison or Hendriks. Honestly, this horror show would most effectively be relayed in the form of bullet points:
- Xander Bogaerts doubled
- David Ortiz got the intentional pass
- Travis Shaw singled
- Pablo Sandoval singled
- Rusney Castillo grounded into a fielder's choice with the out coming at home
- Ryan Hanigan doubled
- Jackie Bradley Jr. walked
After facing those seven batters, Delabar got the hook, likely never to be seen in an important game again this season...maybe never again in a Blue Jays uniform. Jeff Francis came in, which is a sign that the white flag is fully being waved, and allowed another run on a force out before getting out of the inning with a strikeout. The score was 10-1 and not a single Blue Jays fan was sober.
Joe Kelly left the game in the top of the sixth after walking Chris Colabello, with a final line of 5.2 innings pitched yielding just a single earned run on six hits while striking out five. Kelly was fun to watch if you were a Red Sox fan as his sinker had good hard movement and his slider and changeup were both working as well. If you were a Blue Jays fan, then watching Kelly was the worst type of nightmare one can have. He always appeared a few bad pitches away from being completely torn apart and to top it off he was taking about 25 seconds between offerings. He also had a moustache like some weird 1920's film star.
The bottom of the sixth brought so many changes to the teams' lineups that it felt like a spring training game in early March, not a pennant race in September. Nothing much happened until the eighth when a Chris Colabello home run scored three to make it 10-4. That was all she wrote. What an awful baseball-watching experience.
Source: FanGraphs
If you think there's any Jays of the Day then you're sorely mistaken. In terms of Suckage Jays, we have Drew Hutchison (-.291) and Russell Martin (-.101). There wasn't enough leverage to earn Delabar the number, but he was well and truly awful so he gets one too.
Commenty Funtimes: 75 people had nothing better to do with their time than combine for 1,643 comments on a complete blowout. After a down week, Pikachu182 returned to his usual spot atop the leaderboard, with DYTH the only other person to crack the century mark.
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<th width=20>#</th><th>Commenter</th><th># Comments</th>
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<td>1</td><td><a href="http://www.sbnation.com/users/Eric%20%20H">Eric H</a></td><td>141</td>
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<td>2</td><td><a href="http://www.sbnation.com/users/DangYouToHeck">DangYouToHeck</a></td><td>107</td>
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<td>3</td><td><a href="http://www.sbnation.com/users/Belisarius">Belisarius</a></td><td>96</td>
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<td>4</td><td><a href="http://www.sbnation.com/users/JaysWillRise">JaysWillRise</a></td><td>92</td>
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<td>5</td><td><a href="http://www.sbnation.com/users/lalalaprise">lalalaprise</a></td><td>73</td>
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<td>6</td><td><a href="http://www.sbnation.com/users/madrush">madrush</a></td><td>69</td>
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<td>7</td><td><a href="http://www.sbnation.com/users/gammaDraconis">gammaDraconis</a></td><td>64</td>
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<td>8</td><td><a href="http://www.sbnation.com/users/Momus3">Momus3</a></td><td>64</td>
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<td>9</td><td><a href="http://www.sbnation.com/users/Janz_V84">Janz_V84</a></td><td>58</td>
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<td>10</td><td><a href="http://www.sbnation.com/users/shortofbrillant">shortofbrillant</a></td><td>57</td>
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<td>11</td><td><a href="http://www.sbnation.com/users/Cameroli">Cameroli</a></td><td>51</td>
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<td>12</td><td><a href="http://www.sbnation.com/users/MikeC_81">MikeC_81</a></td><td>45</td>
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<td>13</td><td><a href="http://www.sbnation.com/users/Knight%20of%20Hyrule">Knight of Hyrule</a></td><td>45</td>
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<td>14</td><td><a href="http://www.sbnation.com/users/pashwell">pashwell</a></td><td>43</td>
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<td>15</td><td><a href="http://www.sbnation.com/users/Timinthefalls">Timinthefalls</a></td><td>40</td>
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<td>16</td><td><a href="http://www.sbnation.com/users/MartsB">MartsB</a></td><td>37</td>
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<td>17</td><td><a href="http://www.sbnation.com/users/Gerse">Gerse</a></td><td>35</td>
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<td>18</td><td><a href="http://www.sbnation.com/users/Diamond_D86">Diamond_D86</a></td><td>29</td>
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<td>19</td><td><a href="http://www.sbnation.com/users/Kurupt">Kurupt</a></td><td>28</td>
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<td>20</td><td><a href="http://www.sbnation.com/users/Mike%20Hannah">Mike Hannah</a></td><td>28</td>
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<td>21</td><td><a href="http://www.sbnation.com/users/erik.t">erik.t</a></td><td>25</td>
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<td>22</td><td><a href="http://www.sbnation.com/users/ds4tw">ds4tw</a></td><td>24</td>
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<td>23</td><td><a href="http://www.sbnation.com/users/fishedin">fishedin</a></td><td>22</td>
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<td>24</td><td><a href="http://www.sbnation.com/users/hoph">hoph</a></td><td>21</td>
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<td>25</td><td><a href="http://www.sbnation.com/users/Dennzer1">Dennzer1</a></td><td>21</td>
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<td>26</td><td><a href="http://www.sbnation.com/users/NavSS">NavSS</a></td><td>20</td>
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<td>27</td><td><a href="http://www.sbnation.com/users/junior_felix_jr">junior_felix_jr</a></td><td>20</td>
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<td>28</td><td><a href="http://www.sbnation.com/users/GrubersTomahawkChop">GrubersTomahawkChop</a></td><td>17</td>
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<td>29</td><td><a href="http://www.sbnation.com/users/FrankDrakman">FrankDrakman</a></td><td>17</td>
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<td>30</td><td><a href="http://www.sbnation.com/users/SayWord13">SayWord13</a></td><td>16</td>
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<td>31</td><td><a href="http://www.sbnation.com/users/MjwW">MjwW</a></td><td>15</td>
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<td>32</td><td><a href="http://www.sbnation.com/users/bryfryy">bryfryy</a></td><td>14</td>
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<td>33</td><td><a href="http://www.sbnation.com/users/Sancheese">Sancheese</a></td><td>14</td>
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<td>34</td><td><a href="http://www.sbnation.com/users/Area29">Area29</a></td><td>14</td>
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<td>35</td><td><a href="http://www.sbnation.com/users/Yoopka">Yoopka</a></td><td>12</td>
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<td>36</td><td><a href="http://www.sbnation.com/users/stolarz88">stolarz88</a></td><td>11</td>
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<td>37</td><td><a href="http://www.sbnation.com/users/MVPillar">MVPillar</a></td><td>10</td>
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<td>38</td><td><a href="http://www.sbnation.com/users/Two_Words">Two_Words</a></td><td>10</td>
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<td>39</td><td><a href="http://www.sbnation.com/users/Dr.%20Brixton%20Steel%2C%20Ph.D%2C%20Esq.">Dr. Brixton Steel, Ph.D, Esq.</a></td><td>10</td>
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Tomorrow the Blue Jays finally begin their much-anticipated four-game weekend series with the Yankees at 7:05, with David Price facing off against Luis Severino. The Yankees dropped tonight's contest with the Baltimore Orioles and remain 1.5 games back of the Blue Jays. Hopefully the Jays leave all of their poor play in Boston.