Kendrys Morale hits 3 homers, Jays beat Orioles

Blue Jays 11 Orioles 8

Well, that flipped our little narrative.

Today we got great work from the bats, a poor start and fairly decent work from our pen.

Marco Estrada pitched 5 innings, allowed 10 hits, 6 earned, 1 walk with 4 strikeouts. He gave up 2 home runs. One that barely cleared the wall, a 2-run shot from Adam Jones, in the first inning and a deep solo homer from Chris Davis, in the 5th. He got hit hard and often.

But our bullpen did the job:

• Danny Barnes gave up 2 singles to start the 6th inning, but he got a double play and a fly out to get out of trouble.
• Dominic Leone pitched a nice quick 7th.
• Ryan Tepera gave up 4 hits and 2 runs in the 8th, only getting 2 outs. . Bautista misplayed the second hit, having the ball go off his glove, allowing the runner from second to score, but he would have scored off the next hit anyway. The fourth hit was an infield single that Darwin Barney dived at but had it go off his body and bounce away. The runner from second scored, Barney tried to get him at the plate but his throw was late.
• Roberto Osuna came in with runners on first and second. It was made all that more interesting when his first pitch went off the umpire and Montero couldn’t find it and both runners moved up. I think it hit Adam Jone’s bat, before hitting the ump, but it didn’t matter as Osuna got a ground ball to end the inning.

Osuna pitched a nice quick 9th to finish the game for his 35th save,

The offensive story revolves around Kendrys Morales. He hit into a double play, in the first inning, and I thought we were going to have one of those days. But then:

• He hit a 2-run homer in the 3rd inning.
• He hit a 3-run homer in the 6th inning.
• And he hit a solo homer in the 8th inning.

He had an RBI single in the 5th, to give him a 7 RBI day.

We also scored 5 runs in that 5th inning:

• Ryan Goins had a 1-out double.
• After Steve Pearce struck out, Josh Donaldson walked.
• Morales singled, driving in Goins.
• Jose Bautista walked, loading the bases.
• Miguel Montero doubled, driving in 2.
• Kevin Pillar doubled, scoring Bautista.

In all we had 11 hits, including 3 Morales homers and 5 doubles. Morales had 4 hits. Donaldson 3. Montero and Pillar 2 each.

O fors for Bautista (1 walk), Carrera (2 walks) and Barney (0 for 4, 1 k).

Montero had a couple of bad throws. In the first, Manny Machado stole second and Montero threw the ball into center field. I thought Barney should have been able to block the throw, but he didn’t. And the throw on the ‘passed ball’ in the 8th should have been better.

Jays of the Day: Morales (.463 WPA) and Pillar (.191). Monero had the number (.191) but I’m subtracting points for the throws (though I thought he did a good job framing pitches tonight.

Suckage: Estrada (-.361) and Barney (-.103)

We had 464 comments in the game thread. I led us to victory. Yay me.