Jays win game 2

Blue Jays 5 Rangers 3

So all kinds of things happened in that game.

We had four home runs, three of them in the fifth inning. We had a home run by Troy Tulowitzki in the second inning and then Kevin Pillar (on a pitch head high), Ezequiel Carerra and Edwin Encarnacion.

We only managed 6 hits, all game, but 4 of them were home runs. All the runs were off Yu Darvish. We had 1 hit and 1 walk, in 4 innings, against the Rangers bullpen.

J.A. Happ allowed dozens (ok, a sutble exaggeration, 10) of baserunners in 5 inning plus a batter. But he only allowed 1 run. He only 1 clean inning, the fifth, but in the other 4 plus he allowed 9 hits and a walk.

The bullpen had their moments too

• Joe Biagini came in a got 5 outs....he likely could have stayed in longer. In hindsight he should have.
• Brett Cecil came in to get the 3rd out of the 7th and walked Odor on four pitches. Out goes Cecil, in comes...
• Jason Grilli and got the last out of the 7th.
• Rangers pinch hit lefty Mitch Moreland to lead off the 8th, Gibby went to Francisco Liriano. Another debatable move. Grilli has trouble with lefties, but we had a good lead. Moreland hit a line drive down the first base line that Edwin jumped for and it went off his glove for a double. The ball was going foul. If Edwin missed it, it would have been foul. On TV it looked like it hit his glove foul. An out later, Liriano walked Robinson Chirinos. Then Carlos Gomez lined a ball hard off the back of Liriano’s head, ricocheting into right field. It hit solid. Francisco came out of the game. I hope he is ok.
• Roberto Osuna came in, looking for a 5-out save. He got out of the 8th, allowing an inherited runner to score. And then gave up a double, to start the the 9th, and to allow the tying run to get to the plate, 3 times, but he punched out Rougned Odor, got Jonathan Lucroy to pop out and Mitch Moreland to fly out to center. Pillar seemed stumble around a bit before catching it.

Osuna was terrific when we weren’t sure he could pitch, after coming out of the Wild Card game with shoulder issues.

There were a lot of other things that are worth talking about in that game, but one I want to mention. In the 7th, Ian Desmond was on 3rd base, with 1 out and Adrian Beltre hit a grounder to Josh Donaldson. Ian, for unknown reasons, paused before going home. Donaldson threw home. When he did, I thought it was a terrible move. We were up 5-1, in the 7th, let the run score. Martin got the tag down just barely in time. Rangers challenged, but it went our way. I thought he was just barely out.

Jays of the Day: Osuna (.192 WPA, but underline his name, he gets special gold plated JoD), Happ (.122), Biagini (.098), Troy (.172, homer, 2 for 4 day, 2 RBI) and Pillar (for hitting a ball that was head high).

Suckage: Liriano (-.124) had the number. And I’ll give one to Cecil for a terrible four pitch walk.

Jays come home needing to win one game to go to the ALCS and we have Aaron Sanchez pitching Sunday. Life is good.

We had 2313 comments in the GameThreads. Spockster led us to victory. Great work.