More on last night's game

More on last night's game:

Let's talk about the 7 inning. Actually let's talk about the bottom of the 7th. Yeah, the top of the 7th is when the game fell apart, but the interesting part, to me, was the bottom of the inning. Specifically, two outs, in the bottom of the 7th with the tying run on first base.

We had Michael Saunders on first base and the White Sox had a lefty reliever Zach Putnam pitching. Ryan Goins, a lefty batter, hitting (well after that at bat) .172/.209/.219 on the season. Career he has hit .203/.237/.294 against lefties. It's a spot that just screams 'PINCH HIT', but because of stupid roster construction and minor injuries,  we really couldn't do the obvious thing.

With Donaldson nursing a sore leg, he was at DH, forcing us to use are one and only back up infielder at third base. Our bench consisted of Russell Martin (who is day-to-day with a neck issue), Justin Smoak and Kevin Pillar (getting a very rare day off).

If you were going to pinch hit for Goins, say with Pillar, you'd have to get Bautista to come in from the outfield to play third, which, (unless there is some injuries during a game) we'll never see again.

Or I guess you could pinch hit Smoak and have Encarnacion move over to third (again something we won't ever see without some act of God).

It really wouldn't be fair to either player to put them out there for tiny improved chance to win that a pinch hitter might give you.

So instead we were treated to watching Goins ground, weakly, to short (on the first pitch). I love Ryan. I love watching him play defense. But, as much as Buck and Pat keep telling us he's going to become a hitter, I don't see it happening. He had a very good month last year: In August he hit .314/.442/.443, but that's not going to be the norm.

The good part about the call up of Matt Dominguez is that we should be able to pinch hit for Goins, in moments like that, in the future.

Plays like this make sitting through some bad Goins at bats all worthwhile:

I honestly didn't think I'd like Michael Saunders as much as I do. I didn't think he would be able to play as much as he has, even if he's sat a few games because of leg soreness. And, when the trade for Jay Bruce was scuttled, I figured the reason was because medicals showed that Saunders wouldn't be able to play much.

Last night, he played his 15th game (roughly the number I expected for the full season and he went 3 for 5, with a home run (after we had 2 fly balls hit near the top of the fence, both I thought were hit out). At the moment he's hitting .345/.406/.569 on the season. I know this has been a hot stretch, I don't expect him to finish the season with a .975 OPS, but he's been so much better than I hoped.

And he seems to be running ok. He does seem to pick his spots to go full out, but I don't blame him for being careful. His defense has been, in my opinion, fine. He's not Pillar out there, but he's not Melky Cabera with a tumor in his back. I can imagine he's not really wanting to do full out diving catch, just yet. I also imagine that he's checked out left field looking for stray sprinkler heads.

If I said the over/under on games, for Michael, played was 115, would you take the over or the under? Let's have a poll.

Yeah, Brett Cecil had another tough time last night. No I'm not going to dump on him. He's bought enough good will, over the last three years, that I can live with a bad month.

Sportsnet has an interview with Chris Colabello that will play during Blue Jays Central tonight. I don't see what he can say that will change anyone's mind about his guilt or innocence, but I am curious to see what he says.