Jays lose in extra innings

Orioles 6 Blue Jays 2 (12 innings)

Sanchez is sure making it hard the for the Jays to decide to move him to the pen. He was amazing for 6 innings, giving up just 3 hits and 1 walk. He had some troubles in the 7th, maybe because of a blister, when he started the inning giving up a walk and a double, and 2 runs.

And we had lots of good work out of our bullpen. Scoreless innings from Joaquin Benoit, Roberto Osuna, Jason Grilli and Brett Cecil got us to the 12th inning.

Franklin Morales didn’t continue the good work. A leadoff walk, a mysterious balk (stupid plate ump, as well as the balk he had a changing strike zone), and a single put the O’s in front in the top of the 12th. After another walk he was pulled for Jesse Chavez, with 1 out and 2 on and gave up yet another home run to end the drama.

Hard to blame the pitching when we didn’t do much on offense. We did score 2 runs off Chris Tillman, but we should have scored more. Tillman went 5.2 innings, allowed 5 hits, 3 walks with 6 strikeouts. And we only had 1 hit in 6.1 innings against the O’s bullpen.

Our first run came in the second inning, a 1-out double, from Russell Martin, followed by a single from Kevin Pillar set up an RBI ground out from Devon Travis. The other run came on a crushed home run by Troy Tulowitzki.

Troy had to come out of the game an inning after being hit by a pitch in the hand in the 6th inning. He played the top of the 7th, but then came out of the game. I’m hoping it isn’t serious.

He's going to try to play through it:

John Gibbons: Troy Tulowitzki suffered a "chip fracture" in his right thumb. #BlueJays #MLB

— Scott MacArthur (@ScottyMacThinks) July 31, 2016

When Troy came out, Josh Donaldson had to move from DH to third and we had to do without the DH for the second time in July. I don’t know that there was any other way to cover third without having someone playing out of position.

Chavez and Morales were bad, but we really should have been able to score more than 2 runs in 12 innings. We only managed 6 hits and 6 walks in total.

Jays of the Day: Grilli (.137 WPA), Cecil (.137), Osuna (.137), Sanchez (.109), Beniot (.106). Give honorable mention to Troy and Russell.

Suckage: Morales (-.339), Chavez (-.143), Edwin (-.144), Pillar (-.215), Donaldson (-.105), Barney (-.098).

The Jays drop to a half game behind the O’s, which is pretty decent.

We have 1736 comments in the GameThreads. DangYouTHeck led the way. Great job sir.