Yet another Blue Jays loss

Orioles 6 Blue Jays 4

We were ahead for awhile. We were up 2-1 after 2 innings and then 3-1 after 4 innings.

It was looking good. Aaron Sanchez was looking great....I really thought we had a win.

Then came the 5th.

Aaron suddenly lost it.

In the 5th:

• Jonathan Schoop led off with a home run
• Hyun Soo Kim doubled
• J.J. Hardy homered....suddenly we were losing

He got out of the inning, but gave up a solo homer to Chris Davis in the 6th and that was pretty much the game.

Aaron pitched 5.1 innings, allowed 7 hits, 5 earned, with 1 walks and 3 strikeouts. The worst part was the 3 home runs. I don’t know what happened, the first four innings he was normal terrific Aaron Sanchez and then he just lost it. Left balls in the middle of the strike zone, pitches that seemed to be yelling hit me hard.

Dominic Leone, Aaron Loup and Ryan Tepera pitched 2.2 good innings.

Jason Grilli gave up another home run in the 9th, to put us down by 3.

Offensively, it was much the same as the last 9 games, except for a couple of big hits from Justin Smoak. Smoak was 2 for 4 with a home run and 2 RBI. He almost had another hit, in the 9th, when he hit a Zach Britton hard to right, but Seth Smith made a nice catch.

We had 10 hits on the day. Pillar (2), Morales, Tulo (double), Martin (yay), Barney, Goins and Travis had the other hits. We had 0 fors from Pearce and Bautista.

Once again, we gave it a go in the 9th. Martin singled (his second hit of the season), Smoak had the hard out to right, Salty struck out. Then Travis and Pillar each singled, putting the tying run on base.

But....Steve Pearce struck out, after working to a full count. He made it interesting, before chasing a pitch off the inside of the plate.

Game after game, we are just missing that one hit we need.

We had 15 strikeouts today....our offense has been lousy but we haven’t been striking out all that much up until now, we just had a ton of weak contact. Today....if you are looking for a good sign, we did see some hard hit balls. Smoak’s homer was a no-doubter. Martin had a decently hit line drive out, before his hit in the 9th. Kevin Pillar struck out twice, but both his hits were hard hit balls. Even Travis finally hit a ball hard, in the 9th (after 3 strikeouts).

The other moment of interest was when home plate umpire Dale Scott took a foul tip off the mask and had to be taken off the field. It hit him hard.

Jay of the Day: Smoak (.106).

Suckage: Sanchez (-.341) and Pearce (-.318, for an 0 for 5).

We had 905 comments in the GameThread. citizen928 led the way, great job.