Ryan Goins Homers, Jays Beat Cleveland

Clevelanders 2 Blue Jays 4

After his last start, we were all worried about Stroman going into this start.

He didn’t totally set our minds at ease.

• First inning he gave up two hard hit fly balls to the track.
• Second inning he gave up a lead off single to Edwin Encarnacion (the grounder hit Marcus, Ryan Goins made a nice play on the deflection, but didn’t have a chance) and another single, before getting a line drive out to left and a double play ball.
• Third inning was his best inning, two easy ground outs and a strikeout.
• Fourth inning saw him giving up 2 singles, but he got another inning ending double play.
• Fifth inning started off with a single and a walk, but again, a very nice double play got him out of the inning. Ground ball back to Marcus, he threw high to Goins at second, but Ryan managed to go up and get it, while staying on his bag, and made the throw to first.
• Sixth inning, a lead off double, though Steve Pearce should have caught it. 2 outs later, an Encarnacion walk gave us runners on the corners. Jose Ramirez hit one to the track on which Kevin Pillar made just a brilliant catch. Here is one look at it:

In all, 6 innings, 6 hits, 2 walks, 1 strikeout, 3 double plays, and 1 absolutely amazing catch. Marcus got a fair bit of luck, but we haven’t had much luck this season, so I’m ok with Marcus getting some.

Danny Barnes pitched a nice quick 7th, but gave up a walk and a double to start the 8th. Joe Smith came in and gave up a single to right, scoring a run. Bautista threw the ball in, and they had the batter, Francisco Lindor, in a rundown. A bad rundown (yet again). Devon Travis brushed past Lindor and we were called for obstruction. The second runner scored and Lindor to second. I don’t know why we can’t do rundowns? Gibby managed to get thrown out after that.

Smith got out of the 8th, without any more damage and Roberto Osuna had a nice neat 9th for his 5th save.

Offensively:

We did enough. We scored

• 2 in the second. With 1 out Travis hit one high off the wall in right, I think about 2 feet short of a homer. An out later, Goins hit on a mile over the wall in right.
• 2 in the third. Pillar led off with a walk. An out later, Kendrys Morales doubled, giving us runners on second and third. Justin Smoak lifted a broken bat single over the drawn in infield, and both runners scored. Smoak was tagged out, trying to go to second but, had he not, Morales might have been out at the plate. The throw looked close, but Cleveland cut it off to get Smoak. Good play by Smoak.

We only had 6 hits. Goins’ homer, doubles from Travis and Morales, singles from Smoak, Barney and Maile. We also had 5 walks.

Trevor Bauer went 6 innings, throwing 125 pitches.

Edwin had a good night, 2 for 3 and a walk, but he didn’t do any real damage to us. So all is good. The Jays had a video tribute for him before the game and he got a standing O his first time at bat.

Jays of the Day: Stroman (.258 WPA), Goins (.180, plus the great double play) and I’ll give on to Pillar (-.016, on an 0 for 3 with a walk) for the catch.

No one got the Suckage number. Barnes had the low number at -063.

We had 892 comments in the GameThread. Eric H led us to victory, good job sir. I thought I had a shot tonight.