Jays lose to Braves again

Braves 9 Blue Jays 5

A rare poor start for Marco Estrada.

Let’s interrupt our regularly scheduled recap, with a rant.

I’ve rarely been as pissed off at a decision as I was in the 8th inning. Kendrys Morales singles, Justin Smoak works a walk, you have the tying run on second base and a pitcher in trouble. Best yet you have Devon Travis up. Travis has been so locked in, he seems to be able to hit anything to the wall.

AND YOU ASK HIM TO BUNT.

“Here pitcher....I see you are in trouble. Let me help you out.”

Travis tries to bunt, extremely badly, until 2 strikes and then swings at a pitch well off the plate. Darwin Barney followed by lining into a double play. Chance over.

Having Travis bunt is bad enough. Having him bunt with Darwin Barney, Ezequiel Carrera and Ryan Goins (in the event someone gets an intentional walk) following is just incredibly stupid.

People on Twitter tried to suggest that Travis bunted on his own or that Travis misread the sign. I might believe that if he squared to bunt once, but he did it three times. If it wasn’t the sign someone would have yelled at him.

It was the wrong decision. Totally and completely wrong.

It reminds me of a time, back when Cito was manager, and Cito didn’t like bunts, hit and runs, any of that ‘strategy stuff’. The team was losing and the press was on Cito’s case, why don’t you bunt, steal, etc. Finally he started using bunts and hit and runs, but always at the worst times. He had no feel for when to use these tools.

That’s what it feels like with Gibby at the moment. He’s never bunted much, but the team has been losing (at least until recently), people wanted him to ‘do something’ so we get bunts at the worst times.

There are times for bunts.....that wasn’t one of them.

Anyway Estrada had a rare bad start. 6 innings, 8 hits, 5 earned with 5 strikeouts. Everything seemed to be hit hard.

Our bullpen didn’t do much better. Danny Barnes gave up a home run and Joe Smith and Roberto Osuna combined to give up 3 runs in the 9th.

On offense, we had 7 hits and 5 walks. Pillar (double and homer) and Travis (2 doubles) had 2 hits each.

We had 0 fors from Bautista (0 for 3, walk), Carrera (0 for 4, RBI), Goins (0 for 4) and Maile (0 for 2, before we pinch hit for him). Oh, Smoak was 0 for too, but he took 3 walks.

Jays of the Day: Travis (.190 WPA), Smoak (.096) and Pillar (.086).

Suckage: Estrada (-.253), Osuna (-.147), Barnes (-.147), Barney (-.125) and Goins (-.104)

We had 759 comments in the GameThread. delv213 led the way.