We can’t get to .500. Jays lose to Rangers

Blue Jays 1 Rangers 6

Yesterday’s game was fun. Today’s wasn’t. That was our 8th chance to get to .500 and 8th failure.

Francisco Liriano had a bad first inning. Delino DeShields started things off with a bunt single, stole second, went to third on a wild pitch and scored on a ground out. The ground out was the second out of the inning, and I was thinking ‘ok, 1 run, no worries’. That’s when it got bad:

• Carlos Gomez hit a solo homer.
• Roughned Odor singled.
• Jonathan Lucroy hit one over Kevin Pillar, scoring Odor. Pillar broke in on it, and by the time he corrected, he didn’t have a chance at a catch. I thought he should have caught it.
• Mike Napoli singled, scoring Lucroy. He was thrown out trying to go to second on the throw to the plate. Inning over but we were down 4-0.

Liriano would go 4.2. He gave up one more run, solo homer in the 5th. Total, 7 hits, 2 walks, 3 k, 2 homers and 5 earned.

Offensively, we had just 6 hits. We hit the ball hard a bunch but it found gloves.

Kendrys Morales was the only Jay to have more than one hit. Russell Martin, showing he should lead off, took two walks. Kevin Pillar and Jose Bautista were the only Jays not to reach base. Pillar (0 for 5) made good contact a couple of times, but looked terrible a couple of times too.

Our best chance was the 7th. We loaded the bases on 3 walks. Then Steve Pearce pulled one down the left field line. It was barely foul. They reviewed but it was foul. Ryan Goins followed with a single, driving in our lone run.

The bullpen did a good job again, but Leone Campos came out of the game limping. I’m thinking he’ll have to go on the DL. Jeff Beliveau pitched a very good 1.2. He pitched a good inning yesterday too, I said, in the GameThread, that, normally, pitching that much would mean he could be going back to Buffalo tomorrow. But, I’m imagining the Buffalo call will be to get someone up for Campos.

No Jays of the Day. Goins had the high water mark at .038 WPA.

Suckage: Liriano (-.256) and Pillar (-.133 plus the messed up play in the first. His defense doesn’t look as good as it did in the past, at least to me).

We had 556 comments in the GameThread. Eric H led the way. Great job.