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Major League Baseball needs a new rule: when two teams under .500 meet in September, the 10 run mercy rule is in effect. If after five innings, one team leads by 10 or more, or gets to that point thereafter, the game is over. That would have been quite helpful.
Jake Junis completely shut the Jays down over the first six innings, allowing just a measly infield single to Kevin Pillar and a walk. Meanwhile, the Royals built a 13-0 lead.
Brett Anderson got absolutely shelled to the tune of 8 runs on 7 hits (and 2 walks) in 1.1 innings. I'm not nearly enough of a masochist to go through it all over again, but if you must, here's a link. The good news is, he immediately identified the culprit, and meted out swift justice: it was the hat's fault:
Seriously. Did you guys just see this?! #BlueJays #Anderson pic.twitter.com/BKv0F65MkL
— Swagger Iffic (@GirlSwagger101) September 20, 2017
Anyway, it didn't get much better after he left. Luis Santos gave up a home run to the first batter. He did come back with a scoreless inning, as did Aaron Loup in the 4th and Tom Koehler the 5th. Which leads us to the saddest part of tonight.
Carlos Ramirez came in the for the 6th. His second pitch, a 1-0 fastball to Whit Merrifield, was deposited over the fence. And thus, on September 20th, did Carlos Ramirez give up his first earned run of the year. Having acquired the taste for it, he proceeded to give up three more on a walk, double and another home run. He got shelled pretty good. As I observed right after his inning finished:
Ramirez season ERA / FIP / xFIP
15 minutes ago: 0.00 / 2.25 / 4.22
Now: 3.27 / 4.79 / 4.54
Danny Barnes and Leonel Campos had nice innings, and in between Tim Mayza almost had a nice inning. He struck out the two first two batters he faced, then gave up four straight singles (two runs) and a walk, painfully prolonging the agony.
With the entire starting lineup slumbering through the game, once it got out of hand at 13-0 (or really out of hand, 9-0 is pretty out of hand), the Jays put a bunch of the reserves it. And they provided a little spark in the 7th, dirtying up Junis' line. Tesocar Hernandez had the big hit, a bases loaded double to with none out to plate two runs, with another pair scoring back-to-back sac flies. Richard Urena smacked a leadoff double in the 8th that went nowhere, Raffy Lopez hit a solo shot in the 9th to make it 15-5.
Jays of the Day: Ryan Goins made a couple of nifty plays in the field from short, and had a walk, single and sac fly. So why not.
Suckage: Anderson (-0.403 WPA), Ramirez, Mayza, basically the entire lineup of starters. I could probably go on. I won't
Tomorrow, J.A. Happ and Jason Vargas are on the mound in the rubbermatch as the Jays try not to further whittle down their magic number of four...yeah, that's go with that angle.