More on last night’s game

I think, from now on, I just watch the last 2 or 3 innings of Blue Jays/Rangers games. The best stuff happens near the end.

Sportsnet’s Arden Zwelling talked to Marco Estrada after the game and he talked about a bad decision he made in the crappy 4th inning:

The ball came off Choo’s bat at just 55 m.p.h. with a hit probability of only 12 per cent. But it was what baseball people would call a hell of a tough read. As the pitcher, what do you do? Do you try make a play on it? Do you run over to cover first base? These are the decisions that change nights.

As you’ll remember Marco dived at the ball and missed. If he had run straight to first, odds are we would have had the 3rd out of the inning and we still would have had a 5-1 lead.

The two walks before that were costly, but he could have been out of the inning.

As mentioned in the story, Marco stayed on the ground for a few moments after. I don’t know if he shook himself up, but he wasn’t the same pitcher after that.

As well as the bad moments, there were a few good moments in last night’s game, I thought we’d have a poll to vote on our favorite moment.

My favorite moments:

Jose Bautista’s home run in the 4th inning. Reggie Jackson said ‘they don’t boo nobodies’ (though I guess we boo Odor), but I love it when he comes through with the big hit while being booed. It wasn’t his prettiest swing ever, but I loved it.

Steve Pearce’s 3-run double, also in the 4th inning. It only happened because we won the review on Kendrys Morales’ double earlier in the inning, but it was so nice to see. I’m sure my neighbors heard me cheer.

Aaron Loup came into the game with the bases loaded and 1 out and we were already down by a run. The game would have been over if Loup gave up a hard hit, but Loup got Choo to strikeout and Andrus to ground out. He also pitched a clean 6th inning.

Ryan Goins leading off the 9th with a double. It was a close play at second, but getting into second position was a big deal. Ryan doesn’t get a lot of love here (deservedly), and his big moments are few and fair between, but maybe that’s why we really enjoy them when they happen. And isn’t it great that, once again, it was Odor who couldn’t hold onto the ball at a big moment in the game.

Josh Donaldson’s game tying single. Again, my neighbors heard me celebrate. His steal of second was pretty good too.

Kendrys Morales’ single to drive in the go ahead run. Sorry neighbors. On the plus side, they don’t have watch the games, they know how things are going just from listening to me.

Odor making the last out of the game. Yes, I hate the guy. I love watching him fail.

Yeah, this post is just an excuse to celebrate last night’s win some more.