You can't make this up: Ceciliani, Maile and Stroman all homer to power 9-0 Blue Jays win

Blue Jays 9 Braves 0

Just when you think you've got things sort of figured out, baseball is ready to humble you. After three miserable losses to Atlanta, with their best player in 2017 out suspended, an injury fill-in hitting cleanup who had an OPS of .345 in AAA (yes, OPS, not batting average)...well, you'd think it was going to be a tough night for the Blue Jays. But no, the baseball deities had some tricks up their sleeves.

Consider the following things that happened tonight

1. Darrell Ceciliani, he of the .145/.188/.158 AAA slash line, doubled to drive in two runs in the 1st and scored on a double by Chris Coghlan (he of the .176/.259/.255 line) to stake the Jays to a 3-0 lead
2. Darrell Ceciliani (again, he of the .145/.188/.158 AAA line) smashed a two run home run two innings later to make it 6-0.
3. In the course of hitting the above home run, Ceciliani partially dislocated by shoulder, which just might be the most 2017 Jays thing yet
4. Then the skies suddenly opened up with a downpour of rain, as if to say, "all those nice things? yeah, we can take them back"
5. After the rain delay, leading off the top of the 4th, Luke Maile, he of the .056/.128/.056 line, hit a solo home run
6. Can't get much crazier? Marcus Stroman was up next...and he hit a 370 foot home run. To the opposite field.

What can one possibly say about that feat? Leave it to Tabler (courtesy Minor Leaguer): "Amazing. I mean, amazing. Not that they hit a home run. But it was how they did that back-to-back." .

From that point on, things actually were quite routine. The Jays tacked on one more in the 4th, and that was all the scoring as the Jays oat raced to victory. Happily, things didn't get really ugly in a blowout and given the animosity that had built up over the previous three games. Though while we're on the subject of that, Julio Teheran did hit Jose Bautista in the 1st inning, throwing at him twice after the first attempt missed. The umps issued warnings, but frankly if the goal is to prevent these types of things, Teheran should have been tossed on the spot since the intent was crystal clear (certainly after the second one). Alas, it ended up to the Jays manifest benefit that he wasn't.

Stroman ended up throwing 5.2 shutout innings, with 7 hits and a walk against 6 strikeouts. He was good, not great, which was plenty of this evening. He didn't have any clean innings, though got the first two out in the 6th before allowing two runners. Ryan Tepera came on to record a strikeout and end the inning. He was the first of three releivers were were perfect, with Tepera working a clean 7th, Generic Joe a clean 8th, and Jason Grilli a clean 9th with a combined 5 strikeouts. Gibby as clearly having some fun, since he left Tepera in to hit in the top of the 8th, only to take hi out of the game anyway.

Source: FanGraphs

Jays of the Day: Ceciliani (+0.202); Stroman (+0.123); Coghlan (+0.099); Morales (+0.082) but has to get one with a 4 hit night. Bautista had two hits and the hit by pitch, he gets one. Heck, let's give Maile one too, it's not every week he gets a hit day he hits a home run.

Suckage: None

The Jays open a three game series in Baltimore tomorrow at 7:00 EDT, Aaron Sanchez opposed by that stupid blister and Chris Tillman.