Michael Saunders hits 3 home runs, Jays beat Orioles

Blue Jays 13 Orioles 3

I am not sad at all that the Jays laid a beating on Mike Wright. After saying stupid stuff about Edwin Encarnacion, he deserves every run (8 in 3.2 innings) against him.

The Jays hit 5 home runs tonight. 3 of them off Michael Saunders’ bat. With the 3 homers, Michael had 8 RBI. He had 2 3-run homers and a 2-run homer. I am so glad that trade for Jay Bruce didn’t happen. He had a shot at a 4th home run, but hit into a double play with the bases loaded in the 8th inning.

Josh Donaldson had a solo homer and Justin Smoak had a 2 run shot.

In total the Jays had 13 hits. Darwin Barney, Donaldson and Encarnacion had 2 hits each (Edwin also had 2 walks). The only Jay in the starting lineup not to hit was Ryan Goins (he’s forgiven, we didn’t need him tonight).

Aaron Sanchez had a tough first inning. Leading off, Adam Jones hit a line drive that Kevin Pillar got a glove on, but couldn’t hold. I tend to expect Pillar to catch everything. Next batter, Hyun Soo Kim, hit a hard grounder right at Justin Smoak, but it hoped over Smoaks glove and deflected off him for another single. Two pretty unlucky singles, then Manny Machado lined a single to right scoring 1. A walk later, and Sanchez had the bases loaded, with no one out, with a run already in.

But, 2 strikeouts and a ground out later, and Sanchez was out of the inning, with only the 1 run in.

He also had a tough inning in the 3rd. Back-to-back singles to start the inning. After a hard hit line out to Ryan Goins, an RBI single, then walk loaded the bases with 1 out. Fortunately, Barney did a great job, chasing down a pop up along the right field line and then turning and throwing out Machado trying to score from 3rd to end the inning. If he didn’t make that catch it could have been a different game. The Jays would score 7 in the top of the 4th.

That’s a play worth looking at:

In all, Sanchez would go 6 innings. As Matt noted, in the GameThread, if the Jays were really worried about limiting his innings, he could have come out after 5. He allowed 7 hits, 2 earned, 2 walks with 6 strikeouts. Considering the offense he was facing, it was a very good start.

Drew Storen, Chad Girodo and Roberto Osuna pitched an inning each. Osuna gave up a solo homer

Jays of the Day: Saunders (.219 WPA), Donaldson (.186) and Smoak (.091).

No Suckage Jays.

We had 1563 comments in the GameThread, pretty good considering the game was over by the 4th inning. DangYouToHeck led us to victory. Great job.