Walk-off single for Edwin Encarnacion: Jays beat Yankees

Yankees 3 Blue Jays 4

Wasn’t that one amazing 9th inning. Roberto Osuna has a rare blown save, then we come back and win it in the bottom of the inning. .

Melvin Upton worked a walk to start the inning, that was huge. Gibby, asking Pillar to bunt again was......stupid, but Pillar fixed that by getting a 2-strike single. And Upton hustled to third.

Then Ezequiel Carrera put down a beautiful squeeze bunt. It helped that Upton is so fast, but it was perfect.

A Devon Travis strikeout and a Josh Donaldson walk (to set up a double play) brought Edwin Encarnacion up and he played hero, grounding one to the right side just out of the second baseman’s reach.

I’m afraid my screaming woke up my wife, trying to get a nap in.

Osuna has been so good, I guess we can forgive a blown save. He did have more than his share of bad luck there. Two strike singles from Mark Teixeira and Billy Butler (Butler’s a broken bat single). Then a grounder back at him, that Roberto just couldn’t field cleanly, he got the out at first, but it could have been either a double play or an out at third if he came up with it cleanly.

A Mason Williams single (again with 2 strikes) tied the game and a sac fly put the Yankees ahead for the first time this series.

Jose Bautista had a great day. Actually, he’s had a great week or so. Today he got the home run, in the fourth inning, to get us on the board, and the RBI single in the 8th to put us ahead again.

Course Josh Donaldson stealing second was pretty impressive too. That was a great time for a steal.

After a mess of a 7th. Back-to-back singles from Troy Tulowitzki and Michael Saunders. After that Kevin Pillar bunted them to second and third. I hate bunts, but late game bunts are better than 2nd inning bunts. But the pitcher has given up back to back hits, I don’t like letting him off the hook. Keep the pressure on him. But I can understand the bunt.

Unfortunately, Ezequiel Carrera took two good pitches on the on the outside corner and then chased low. One of the reasons I hate the bunt is that it puts so much pressure on the next hitter. After Ezequiel, Devon Travis struck out.

Marco Estrada was great again. He deserved a win, but I’m sure he’s just as happy the team won. Marco went 7 innings, allowed just 4 hits, 2 walks with 7 strikeouts. His one earned run was a Didi Gregorius home run to lead off the 7th inning.

Marco got in more trouble in the 7th, giving up a single and a walk and making us think he should come out of the game. Maybe he should have come out, but he managed to get out of the inning. His 7th went home run, strikeout, single, strikeout, walk, strikeout.

Joaquin Benoit gave up a lead off double, in the 8th, but got out of the inning with a fly out and a pair of strikeouts.

Maybe we should have scored more, we had 9 hits and 6 walks, but we scored enough. Jose Bautista reached 4 times, with a homer, the big single and 2 walks.

Jays of the Day: Pillar (.308 WPA), Bautista (.283),Estrada (.253), Upton (.134), Encarnacion (.133), Benoit (.106) and Carrera (.095).

Suckage: Osuna (-.640, but we forgive), Travis (-.188, on an 0 for 4 with a walk) and Martin (-.121).

That gives us 5 wins in the last 6 games and 7 in the last 10. Slump? What slump.

We had 1166 comments in the GameThread. DangYouToHeck led us to victory. Great job.