Walk off win for the Blue Jays

Red Sox 9 Blue Jays 10

The bottom of the 8th and the bottom of the 9th were my two favorite half innings of the season. We had to comeback against Craig Kimbrel twice. He deserves two blown saves for that.

In the bottom of the 9th, down a run again, we didn't start our comeback until there were 2 outs in the inning. Justin Smoak hit a nice two out single. Pinch runner Ezequiel Carrera stole second and went to third on the bad throw by Christian Vazquez. Russell Martin battled, and doubled home Carrera on the 6th pitch of the at bat.

Then with Devon Travis up, Kimbrel threw a wild pitch to move Martin to third. With 2 strikes, Travis hit one up the third base line, Travis Shaw made a diving stop but his throw bounced past first and we won on a walk off single. Just an amazing job inning.

The bottom of the 8th was, at least, equally amazing. We were down 8-4 at the start of the inning:

• Michael Saunders started things off by getting hit with a pitch.
• Justin Smoak grounded one between short and third that Red Sox shortstop, Xander Bogaerts made a nice diving stop on, but his throw to second pulled Dustin Pedroia just off the bag at second. Red Sox appealed but it didn't go their way. Pedroia's foot did come away from the bag.
• Russell Martin singled to left, and Saunders scored from second. It was a terrible idea to send him, we were down by 4 with no outs, his run didn't matter. He was just safe.
• Devon Travis doubled, scoring Smoak, and putting the tying run on second.
• A Junichi Tazawa wild pitch scored Smoak and put the tying run on third. But pinch hitter Jimmy Paredes struck out. I wasn't thrilled with pinch hitting for Darwin Barney. Barney had a double and a triple already in the game. But Paredes was hitting lefty against the right-handed pitcher.
• Red Sox brought in Craig Kimbrel and he struck out Kevin Pillar.
• With two outs, Jose Bautista singled to right to tie the game. That was a great at bat for Bautista, he didn't try to pull the pitch, just went with it and got us tied again.

Gavin Floyd has given up way too many home runs this season. And, it seems, always at the worst possible time. Today, Jays fight back from being down by four, and Gavin gives up a David Ortiz home run to put us behind again. Can Ortiz just hurry up and retire already?

Marcus Stroman had a terrible game. He allowed 11 hits (most of them hard hit balls), 7 earned, 1 walk with 5 strikeouts in 5.1 inning. His defense saved him several times. It really could have been worse. He only had 1 clean inning.

In particular, the defense saved him in the 4th inning. He gave up a lead off homer. That was followed by an Ortiz double and a Hanley Ramirez walk. Jackie Bradley hit a line drive but shortstop Darwin Barney made a nice running catch, and Devon Travis, very heads up, was moving to second to take a throw that, just barely, doubled off Ortiz. Then Travis Shaw lined one hard to Josh Donaldson.

Other than Floyd, our bullpen did a very nice job:

• Jesse Chavez gave up an unearned run in his inning of work. Kevin Pillar misplayed a bounce on a single, allowing the runner to second. A wild pitch moved the runner to third and a single scored him. I think the runner would have been able to score from second, so I'm not sure the error really hurt us, but it was one of those careless moment that shouldn't happen.
• Aaron Loup got both of his 2 batters to strikeout in his first action as a Blue Jay this season. He looked great, maybe because he only faced lefty batters, but that's the way he should be used.
• Drew Storen game up a double, but got through his inning without allowing a run.
• Floyd we talked about.

Like always, we could have/should have scored more. We had 13 hits. We scored 3 in the 3rd inning. Back-to-back doubles from Barney and Pillar to start the inning. A Bautista single and Donaldson walk to load the bases. Encarnacion was hit on the hands by a pitch to get a painful RBI and we scored one more on a Saunders GBDP.

We got 1 more in the 6th, a Martin solo homer.

All the starters had at least one hit, except for Saunders who was hit by pitch to start our big 8th inning. Martin had 3, including a homer and a double. Bautista, Travis and Barney had 2 each.

We scored 8 runs with just the one solo homer.

Jays of the Day? We had many heroes today. Martin gets a gold plated JoD for a .725 WPA. Travis can have a silver plated one for his .549. And Bautista will have to settle for an ordinary JoD for his .256.

Suckage: Stroman (-.493), Floyd (.301), Pareded (-.126 for his strikeout with the then tying run at third), Saunders (-.122) and Encarnacion (.108).

That gives us 4 wins in a row, and puts us above .500 for the first time in weeks.

The FanGraph was a thing of beauty:

Source: FanGraphs

We had 1317 comments in the GameThreads. Momus3 led us to victory. Great job.