No offense, again. Jays lose to Orioles

Orioles 2 Blue Jays Nada

That was so frustrating.

Ubaldo Jimenez (a guy who came into the game with a 7.15 ERA) held the Jays to 2 hits and 1 walk over 8 innings. He struck out 8 Jays. I don’t know that he was that good, I think we were just that bad.

Our only hits, against Jimenez, were:

• A 2-out double, in the 3rd inning, by Ryan Goins
• A 2-out double, in the 8th inning, by Kevin Pillar. Pillar thought he had a home run, and slowed rounding first and was almost thrown out at second. The ball hit the wall at a white lit-up advertising sign. He likely lost it in the sign.

That was it for offense. We watched way too many 3rd strikes. It was that or swing at pitches well off the plate for strike 3.

I don’t know what is going on with our bats. Kendrys Morales had 3 strikeouts, Jose Bautista 2. And we had a lot of soft contact. It wasn’t like we were hitting rockets into gloves.

Russell Martin had a 1-out single in the 9th, to bring us hope. That was after Bautista got to a 3-1 count and then fouled off pitches until he tapped one to short.

With Martin on first, Josh Donaldson watched strike 3 cross the middle of the plate. Than, Justin Smoak lined one to right center. I hoped for a collision, but Adam Jones made the catch.

It’s stupid to blame a coach, but I think I’d replace the hitting coach. It isn’t his fault, at all, but maybe someone different talking to the batters will help in some way. Yeah, not likely.

J.A. Happ fought his way through 6.1 innings. He gave up 8 hits and 2 walks and had just 2 strikeouts. He was being hit hard, but seemed to get the outs when he needed them. He was pretty lucky to get out with just the 2 runs against.

Dominic Leone had a perfect 1.2 innings and Ryan Tepera had a perfect 9th.

There were a couple of good moments. Just a couple.

• Ezequiel Carrera made a good throw to second to get Jonathan Schoop, who, at looked to me, figured no way could Ezequiel make a throw like that. Schoop, earlier in the game, hit a clear double to left but didn’t run it out and settled for a single.
• Ezequiel made a diving catch (ok, to me he dived just after he caught it, but he caught it.
• And Kevin Pillar made as good a catch as you are ever going to see.

No Jays of the Day. Leone had the high mark at .067.

Suckage: Donaldson and Bautista (both at -.135). Really the entire batting order deserves the award.

We had 445 comments in the GameThread (if there was good news, it was that the game was just 2 hours and 20 minutes long. A terrible game, but at least it was short). lalalaprise led the way, and deserves a JoD.