Jays win their 7th straight

Tigers 0 Blue Jays 6

7 in a row!!!

Once again, the Jays pass on scoring runs early, just to create suspense and then score late and often.

J.A. Happ threw a ton of pitches (slowly), but kept the Tigers off the scoreboard for 5.2 innings. He was good, but he was that Happ that drove me crazy the last time he was a Jay, work slowly to a full count on each batter. It took Happ 109 pitches to get to 2 outs in the 6th. He gave up 6 hits, 1 walks and had 9 strikeouts.

Chavez took over for Happ, with 2-outs, and the tying runner on second, and proceeded to give up a single, which I figured was going to tie the game, but the Tigers held the runner at third and Chavez got out of the inning and pitched a clean 7th.

Bo Schultz had a clean 8th, getting Miguel Cabrera, Victor Martinez and Nick Castellanos. That’s a pretty tough group of batters. He would go out for the 9th and had another clean inning. Good work Bo.

The Jays didn’t score until the 5th inning. Darwin Barney led off with a double, Ezequiel Carrera singled him to third and he scored on Josh Donaldson’s double play grounder. Not what we wanted to happen, but we were on the board.

We got 4 more in the 7th. The amazing run came when Justin Smoak scored from first on a Kevin Pillar double. I would have bet there was no way he could score from first on anything less than a home run.

If you don’t believe me, here is the play:

Of course, a few batters later, Edwin Encarnacion hit a 3-run homer, making that Smoak run seem a little less important.

We scored one more in the 8th, singles by Pillar and Darwin Barney set up a sac fly from Carrera sac fly.

There was a couple of pretty amazing plays on defense. Josh Donaldson had a ground ball deflect off the third base bag, and he was able to make a bare handed play on it and a great throw to first. You can see it here if you missed it. And Tulo made a terrific jump throw to first in the 9th inning.

Jays of the Day: Happ (.289 WPA), Chavez (.166) and Pillar (.095) have the number. Edwin hits a 3-run homer and doesn’t have the number (.051), so let’s give him honorable mention.

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