Homers from Tulowitzki, Martin and Encarnacion, Jays beat Astros

Astros 2 Blue Jays 9

That was a nice game. Had everything. Good pitching, timely hitting, stupid bunts and good defense.

Marcus Stroman had a very good start. 6.1 innings, 5 hits, 2 runs, 1 earned (one scoring on his own silly error), no walks and 8 strikeouts.

He had a bit of trouble, in the 2nd inning. He gave up a leadoff single and then hit Marwin Gonzalez in the knee (Gonzalez had to leave the game after the inning). After a couple of fly outs, Astros rookie Teoscar Hernandez tapped one in front of the plate. Marcus fielded it, then tried a jump/spin throw to first. He threw it well wide of first and it cost him a run. That was a bad idea. But he wouldn’t give up another run until a leadoff homer in the 7th, when he was tiring a bit.

The bullpen did it’s job again. Joaquin Benoit got the last 2 outs of the 7th, helped by a very nice catch on a popup at the Astros’ dugout, by Russell Martin and a nice catch of a hard liner, by Josh Donaldson. Jason Grilli pitched a quick 8th. Brett Cecil pitched a quick 9th.

And we got vintage work from the Jays offense. We had back-to-back homers from Troy Tulowitzki (2-run shot) and Russell Martin in the 5th inning and Edwin Encarnacion hit a no-doubter in the 7th.

And we had boring non-homer runs in the 1st, 4th and 8th:

• In the 1st: Devon Travis started the Jays off with a double. Donaldson bunted him to third (please Josh, don’t do that again) and an out later Troy singled Travis home.
• In the 4th: The inning started with a Tulo single and a Martin walk. Two outs later Darrell Cecilliani singled Tulo home.
• And in the 8th: Martin singled and Justin Smoak walked, then Melvin Upton singled home Martin.

We had 12 hits on the day. Tulo had 3 (and 3 RBI). Travis, Edwin, Martin and Upton had 2 each. Upton also managed to get himself picked off at first base. Ceciliani had the other hit. A Travis single set up a bases loaded Donaldson walk, followed by Edwin getting a sac fly (even though Buck said it was inning over).

Edwin also took a pitch off his hand early in the game. It looked bad at the time, but he had a double, a homer and a sac fly after that, so he must be ok.

Jays of the Day: Stroman (.186 WPA), Tulo (.310) and Ceciliani (.129). I’m giving one to Edwin and Martin too.

No Suckage Jays. Smoak had the low mark at -.085.

The first place Jays are heading to New York to play the Arodless Yankees.

We had 1169 comments in the GameThreads. Momus led us to victory. Great work.