An Ugly Loss: Jays lose to Braves

Blue Jays 4 Braves 8

Often I think that pitching coaches should be quicker to go talk to a pitcher.

Tonight, in the first inning, Joe Biagini gave up a leadoff single. Then he had a ground ball hit right back to him, one of those nice double play balls, but Joe threw high to second and, instead of 2 outs, none on, it was no outs and 2 on. Joe walks the next batter on four pitches, and I’m thinking go talk to the guy, he’s clearly mad at himself for that error.

Another walk, scoring a run, and then Pete Walker goes out to talk to him. I thought he should have been out there quicker.

But then....well, Biagini gave up a deep fly (which turned out to be a long single) into the left field corner, scoring 2 and then a 3-run homer....so, maybe talking to Joe earlier wouldn’t have made a difference.

After the home run, Biagini got 12 outs in a row. Unfortunately, that was after he gave up 6 runs before getting an out. That bad throw to second really seemed to shake him up. If he had made that throw, it likely would have been a different game.

If you watch that mess, you really would have liked a different game. Hard to imagine any game could have been worse.

And yeah, wasn’t the ‘effort’ by Ezequiel Carrera, on that fly ball into the corner, the worst looking thing you’ve seen in a long time. I mean, it wasn’t an easy catch, but Ezequiel had lots of time to get there, but looked like someone that had never seen a fly ball before.

Offensively, we did nothing until the 4th inning. Jose Bautista led off the inning with a hard hit double to the opposite field and then Justin Smoak followed with an opposite field homer.

We got another run in the 5th, but we had the potential for more. Luke Maile hit a bloop single, went to second and third on back-to-back ground outs, and scored on a wide pitch.

After Maile scored, Carrera walked and Bautista singled up the middle. Smoak followed with a weak grounder towards third base. It looked like everyone would be safe, but Ezequiel, stupidly, ran into the third baseman going for the ball, getting called out for obstruction. A stupid move that couldn’t have come at a worse moment, we had a good chance to cut into the lead.

The bullpen gave up a couple more in the 6th inning. Dominic Leone gave up a double, a walk and a sac fly. J.P. Howell took over and gave up a run scoring single and a walk, before getting out of the inning. A hit, a walk and a ground out......and that counts as a good outing for Howell. I guess I shouldn’t admit that I liked that signing. We aren’t paying him so much that we we should be afraid to let him go.

Howell got the first two outs of the 7th, before giving up a walk, but got a ground out.

How many batters have we hit in these 3 games vs Atlanta? Loup got one today.

Kevin Pillar was upset by a ‘quick pitch’ from Jason Motte and, said something. If it is the something that we all thought he said, he’s going to have some explaining to do.

And Jose upset the Braves, hitting a home run and doing a slight bat flip, I’m not sure it was intended to be a bat flip, but Braves first baseman Jace Peterson wasn’t happy (I imagine if your name is Jace, unhappy is your default position).

Bautista had a good day with the bat, single, double and homer. And Smoak hit a home. And that was about it for positives.

We made 3 official errors. Biagini on the possible double play ball, Maile firing a pick off throw well wide of second (silly idea to throw there) and Bautista overran a single, costing us a base. And, of course, the bad moves from Carerra.

No Jays of the Day. Maile had the high mark at .071 but that ignores his throwing error.

Suckage: Biagini(-.353 WPA) and Goins (-.122, 0 for 4). Ryan’s been terrible with the bat of late, hitting (and slugging) .143 over the past 7 games. And Ezequiel deserves an extra special Gold Plated Suckage Award.

We had 477 comments in the GameThread. delv213 led the way. Good job.