Great start from Dickey plus a Donaldson 3-run homer, Jays beat Tigers

Tigers 1 Blue Jays 6

It’s nice to go into the All-Star break on a win. The Jays are 51-40. Unless the Angels can make a comeback win, it looks like the Jays will be 2 games back of the Orioles, heading into four days off.

That was a very good start from R.A. Dickey. 7 innings, 5 hits, 1 earned, 2 walks and 5 strikeouts. He goes into the break with a string of three 7 inning starts. It gives me a good feeling about the ‘second half’ of the season.

His start would have looked that much better if Kevin Pillar hadn’t deviated from his normal amazing defense, instead helping the Tigers to a couple of triples in the 5th inning. I guess it is because he’s been so good, I’m surprised when he doesn’t make a play.

On offense we did more than enough. Josh Thole hit a 2-run single, with the bases loaded and 2-out, in the second inning. I was glad to see that, Josh has had some good at bats lately, nice to see one fall in for him.

The other Josh hit a 3-run homer in the 5th inning, scoring his 80th run of the season, on his 23rd home run, giving us this:

That also got him up to 63 RBI. If you are wondering he had 21 home runs, 65 runs, 60 RBI at the break, on his way to the MVP award, last year.

We added another run in the 8th, Michael Saunders hit a bases loaded single.

The bullpen did their job, Jesse Chavez and Brett Cecil shared a scoreless 8th and Bo Schultz pitched the 9th. He gave up a couple of baserunners, just to make sure we watched until the very end.

Jays of the Day: Dickey (.261 WPA) and Donaldson (.163) and Thole (.182).

Suckage: Surprisingly Darwin Barney has the number at -.100 on an 1 for 4 with 2 strikeouts.

We had a bit of a slow GameThread. Just 614 comments, but then it is a beautiful Sunday afternoon. I’m planning to go for a bike ride this afternoon. MidnightOverlord led us to victory. Great job.