Great start from Biagini, Jays beat Mariners

Mariners 0 Blue Jays 4

Joe Biagini had another great start. I’m relatively certain that he won’t continue on forever with a 0.00 ERA as a starter, but he sure looked in control tonight. He looks like he needs to stay in the rotation.

The only inning where it seemed that the Mariners might score off Joe was the 3rd, when he gave up a lead off single and a 1-out double (Ezequiel diving at a ball, and missing), giving him runners on 2nd and 3rd. But, Taylor Motter, decided against going home on a ground out to Darwin Barney at third. I don’t know what he was thinking. A fly out later, Biagini was out of his only trouble of the game.

He pitched 5 innings, plus a batter, allowing 4 hits, no walks with 3 strikeouts. There was very little hard contact. He was at 64 pitches after 5 and I’d have taken him out there, but Gibby had him start the 6th. When Jean Segura led things off with a single, Gibby brought Danny Barnes in.

Barnes got out of the inning. Barnes started the 7th giving up back-to-back singles, but followed up with back-to-back strikeouts. With 2 out and 2 on, and Segura up again, Gibby brought in Ryan Tepera to get the 3rd out. I was willing to pull Barnes when he went full count on Carlos Ruiz, after the two singles, but I was surprised he pulled him after the two strikeouts.

It worked, so I won’t complain, and Tepera came back out and pitched a quick 8th.

Even with the 4-run lead, Gibby brought Osuna in for the 9th. He had a nice quick inning, with 2 strikeouts. Wins have been few enough that I’m ok with Osuna finishing off this one.

Offensively...we did enough.

We scored 4 runs on 10 hits. It should have scored more, but considering how the bats started the season, I should be happy.

In the first inning, Kevin Pillar walked (number 12 of the season, half way to his total from last year) and Ezequiel Carerra singled. It was looking good until Jose Bautista hit into a double play and Justin Smoak ground out (hitting the ball the other way, but right at the only fielder on the left side of the infield). Thankfully we scored in each of the next two innings.

In the second inning, we started with 2 base runners again, singles from Steve Pearce and Ryan Goins. Barney bunted them up a base and Pearce scored on a Devon Travis ground out. Gotta have small ball (I guess, I hated that we had M’s starter Christian Bergman in trouble and then gave him a free out).

In the third inning, Pillar started things off with a single, and, an out later, Jose Bautista hit one that hit the foul netting on the left field line, for a 2-run homer.

In the sixth, we got 1-out singles from Goins and Barney, they moved up on a passed ball and Goins scored on a Travis sac fly.

Pillar, Carrera, Goins and Barney had 2 hits each. Pillar and Carerra had a steal each too. We had 0 fors from Smoak, Maile and Travis (but Travis drove in 2 runs, so he’s forgiven).

Maybe someone could have a talk to Ezequiel. He had a great day with the bat and an interesting day with the glove. He dived and missed on a fly ball (he should have caught it) and he almost collided with Pillar on another fly (please Eze, Pillar calls it, let him have it). I keep thinking he should be a good outfielder, he can run well enough but he takes ‘unique’ (thanks Dan Shulman) routes to balls and he dives too often (and never seems to make the catch when he dives.

Jays of the Day: Biagini (.212 WPA). None of the batters got the number but I’m giving a JoD to Pillar (2 hits, a walk, a steal, and a narrowly avoided collision with Ezequiel. Those two need to stop doing that every game.).

No Suckage Jays. Smoak gets the low mark at -.066, for his 0 for 4 with a k, but he did make a very nice catch, on a line drive down the line, in the first inning.

We had 600 comments in the GameThread. I led us to victory again. Yay me.