A bad start and bad offence, Jays lose

Twins 7 Blue Jays 2

I feel like I’ve written the same recap about 100 times this season. We fall behind early and just can’t score.

Joe Biagini wasn’t good. I didn’t think he was as bad as the boxscore suggests. He pitched 3.2, allowed 9 hits, 3 walks with 4 strikeouts. Lots of hits, most of the ground ball rolling through the infield or bloop types. He gave up a home run to Byron Buxton, one of three Buxton hit on the day, but there wasn’t much else hit hard. So there was some bad luck.

Then again, 12 base runners in 3.2, and only 5 earned against.....he had some good luck too.

The bullpen looked pretty good:

• Aaron Loup faced 5 batters and struck out 4 (with a single in there to break things up).
• Matt Dermody pitched 2 innings, got 4 strikeouts, but gave up a solo homer to Buxton.
• Dominic Leone stuck out 2 in the 8th, allowing a single.
• Tim Mayza got 3 strikeouts but gave up Buxton’s 3rd home run of the game.

Our pitchers struck out 17 (with Buck and Pat telling us how great the Twins’ two-strike approach was). That’s a season high.

As has been the case, most of the season, we didn’t have much offense.

7 hits, total, 3 of them from Norichika Aoki (who had a solo home run). Aoki drove in our other run too. Miguel Montero hit a 1-out double in the second and Aoki followed with a single. I thought Montero was going to be thrown out at the plate, but Twins catcher Chris Gimenez missed with the tag. I thought it was a dumb send, with 1 out.

That was about it for offense.

The moment that pretty much summed up the game was when Josh Donaldson walked to start the 3rd inning (we were down 3-1 at the time) and then got picked off first. With Justin Smoak up next it was really really bad.

Jays of the Day: Aoki (.190 WPA).

Suckage: Biagini (-.307).

Boring baseball makes Tom a sad boy.

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