Jays lose to Rays

Blue Jays 5 Rays 6

All I really want to talk about is Kevin Pillar getting ejected. Umpires need to grow a skin. I keep saying the same thing, baseball is personal for the players. You can understand why they take bad calls (or perceived bad calls) personally. For umpires, they shouldn’t be taking it personally. They should be above it. Let the players vent a bit.

Umpires used to say that ‘if the player didn’t ‘show up’ the ump, they gave a lot of leeway’. Don’t make a big show of it, don’t let the entire park know you are arguing.

Kevin says something as he passes behind the ump. If the ump stands there, and ignores, no one knows Kevin has complained. Instead, the ump has a thin skin and has to show the park that Kevin complained.

Umpires have to understand that throwing someone out makes them look bad. They should be trying to keep everyone in the game.

Anyway....

The other thing that bugged me was pinch hitting Ezequiel Carrera with Darwin Barney. 7th inning, a lefty pitching for the Rays. Pillar out of the game, because of a stupid ump, Carrera in in his place. I’d much rather have Carrera bat against a lefty than Barney.

Barney struck out.

Next up is another lefty bat, Ryan Goins. You have two lefty bats in a row and you pinch hit for Carrera instead of Goins?

Skip ahead to the 9th inning, we are down 2. Kendrys Morales leads off with a single. Steve Pearce doubles. We have the tying run on second. Miguel Montero flies out deep. We have the tying run on third.

Guess who is up?

Darwin Barney.

Barney swings, off balance, at the first pitch, well off the plate. A soft grounder to second. And the runner on third can’t score.

Just a stupid at bat. You gotta wait for a pitch you can hit hard.

Goins, at least, hit the ball hard, and if there wasn’t 2 outs, it would have brought home the tying run. Instead, Jays lose.

Chris Rowley had a tough time. 3.1 innings. 5 hits, 4 earned, 3 walks and 1 strikeout.

He gave up 2 deep deep homers, one each in the first and second inning.

Unfortunately he gave up 2 more runs in the second, off a single, walk and Kevin Kiermaier triple (on a 2 strike pitch).

Our bullpen pitch 4.2 innings. Matt Bermody gave up an unearned run, helped along by a Carrera error (stupid ump). Dominic Leone had a tough inning, allowing 4 hits and an earned run. Tim Mayza allowed 2 hits (but no runs) in his 1.1. T.J. House pitched a nice clean inning. I’d like to see more of him.

Offensively?

Norichika Aoki (I’ll learn how to spell his first name one day) started things off right, with a home run on the second pitch of the game.

We scored 2 in the 5th. Miguel Montero struck out, but reached on a passed ball (we’ve seen a lot of that lately). Carrera doubled and Ryan Goins continued his magic bringing home one with a single. Aoki plated the other runner with a sac fly.

Donaldson homered in the 8th and we’ve already talked about the 9th.

We had 7 hits and a walk, so 5 runs seems pretty good. Goins had 2 of the hits, and a the hard line/fly out to end the game. Bautista (who made a terrific play at third) and Smoak had a tough time at the plate. They went 0 for 7, with a Bautista walk, with 5 strikeouts.

Jay of the Day: Pearce was the only one to get the number, .145 WPA.

Suckage: Rowley (-.309), Leone (-.130) and Barney (-.209).

And plate umpire Chad Fairchild gets a special, gold plated, Suckage Award for Being Thin Skinned Above and Beyond the Call of Duty.

I’ll add the role call later, I’m being called for cake. It is my wife’s birthday.