Osuna blows another save, Jays lose to Cardinals in extras

Blue Jays 4 Cardinals 8 (11 innings)

Boy that hurt. The Cards did everything they could to hand us the game, but we are above charity. We have too much pride for that.

I don’t know what to do with Osuna. He almost cost me my laptop today, I nearly threw it across the room when Randal Grichuk hit the tying homer in the 9^th.

Mat Latos gave us 6 scoreless innings, I don’t know if he was particularly good, or if the Cardinals were just that bad, but let’s give him the benefit of the doubt. He allowed 3 hits, 4 walks, with 4 strikeouts. He was helped along by some crappy Cardinal baserunning and some good defense (Chris Coghlan made a nice play to start a 5-4-3 double play to help Mat out of the 6^th inning), but he deserves some credit.

Mat didn’t seem to appreciate home plate umpire Brian O’Nora’s strike zone. It really didn’t seem all that bad to me.

On offense, I thought we did enough, until Osuna gave up the home run. Through 9 innings we had 8 hits, 4 walks (10 strikeouts, but Cards starter Carlos Martinez tends to get strikeouts). And we were helped by some more Cardinal mistakes. One in particular, Martinez, for unknown reasons, decided to try to pick Jose Bautista off second, throwing the ball into center field, when there wasn’t a fielder at second.

Bautista had a nice day, 2 singles, a walk and a hit by pitch (I’ll try to ignore the double play he hit into in the 9^th inning, when we really could have used some insurance runs!). Russell Martin hit a solo homer (our only extra base hit of the day). Kevin Pillar was 2 for 5. And Ryan Goins had a big 2-run single, in the 6^th.

In 2 extra innings we did almost nothing offensively, just a Kendrys Morales pinch-hit single (quickly doubled off by Pillar).

I thought Cardinal mistakes were going to be the story of the game. They had mistakes from:

· Starter Martinez, for unknown reasons, decided to try to pick Jose Bautista off second, throwing the ball into center field when there wasn’t a fielder there.

· Second baseman Kolten Wong made an error.

· Wong was also picked off second, on a missed bunt attempt, by Russell Martin.

· Grichuk was thrown out trying to go to second, a play after Pillar just missed making a great catch (it popped out of his glove). Pillar threw towards the plate, trying to get the runner scoring from second, it was cut off, and Grichuk was out by 10 feet or so.

Our bullpen wasn’t sharp:

· Joe Biagini gave up a run in the 7^th, off 2 hits.

· Joe Smith gave up a run in the 8^th again off 2 hits.

· And, of course, Roberto Osuna gave up the game tying runs in the 9^th, off a 2-run homer.

· Dominic Leone gave up a leadoff single to start the 10^th. After 2 strikeouts, another single put runners on the corners. It didn’t look good. An intentional walk loaded the bases (I hate that, put the pitcher in a spot where there is no room for error, but it got a fly out to center.

· Ryan Tepera gave up the leadoff triple in the 11^th. Then…..two intentional walks….man I hate that. A weak fly to Ezequiel in left kept the game alive. That would bring in

· J.P. Howell, with the bases loaded, 1 out. Howell went to a full count with Matt Carpenter, and Carpenter hit the next pitch a mile.

Jays of the Day: Latos (.352 WPA), Leone (.134) and Goins (.120 for the 1 for 5, but the 1 drove in 2 runs.

Suckage: The whole bullpen (minus Leone). Add in Pillar (-.172 WPA, even with the 2 hits, plus not hanging on to the ball on what would have been a great catch).

Remember how much fun baseball was just Tuesday.

We had 904 comments in the GameThread (would have had more if Shaw internet wasn’t out across the county, including my house). TimmyMax led the way.