Great Start from J.A. Happ, Jays beat Mariners

Blue Jays 4 Mariners 0

Finally we got a nice start from J.A. Happ. He gave up more hits than you might have liked and it would have been good if he could have pitched into the 7th, but he seemed to have his command back.

6 innings, 6 hits (often it seemed like Happ needed a couple of base runners before he buckled down to work each inning), no walks and, of course, no runs. He did seem to be working a little slow, but what else did I have to do on a Sunday afternoon?

We scored enough, should have scored more (this is a recording), but 4 runs off James Paxton is pretty good.

• Josh Donaldson homered, after a Kevin Pillar double, in the first.
• And we strung together 3 2-out hits, around a walk, to score 2 more in the fourth.

We had 8 hits, and 3 walks, off Paxton, in his 4 innings. He wasn’t impressive. That was it for offense for us. Emilio Pagan, 4 innings, and Dan Altavilla, 1 inning, kept us hitless after Paxton left the game.

The top of the order did the damage for us. Pillar was 2 for 5, both doubles, and Donaldson was 3 for 5, with the homer. Jose Bautista took 2 walks and Kendrys Morales was 1 for 3 with a walk and an RBI.

Tulo, Barney and Carrera were the only Jays, in the starting lineup, not to reach base. A timely hit from any of those 3 would have put the game out of reach.

Ezequiel Carrera had his daily misplay, letting a rolling ball, get past him, along the left field wall, but it is his birthday, so we’ll forgive.

Our pen did the job for the most part. Jeff Beliveau and Aaron Loup were both brought in in the LOOGY role and each game up a hit. Gibby gets complaints about not using his lefties as LOOGYs, and when he does, he’s wrong again.

Ryan Tepera got us out of the seventh and Joe Smith the 8th, even with the handicap of starting out with a runner on first.

Danny Barnes started the ninth, got 2 outs, but then gave up a walk and a single, just off the glove of a leaping Tulo. So, in came Roberto Osuna. He gave up a hard drive to right, but Jose caught it. Roberto got save #16.

Jays of the Day: Donaldson (.260 WPA) and Happ (.258).

No Suckage Jays. Tulo had the low mark at -.044.

It’s nice to get a series win at the Jays home field west. Tomorrow is an off-day and then they can try to get back to .500 Tuesday in Toronto against the Rays.

We had 655 comments in the GameThread. TimmyMax led us to the victory.