A great Happ start and 5 homers add up to a Blue Jays win

Blue Jays 9 Red Sox 4

Why couldn’t we have more games like this one, this season?

Many of us figured a lefty starter would have a dominate start tonight, but not many of us figured it would be J.A. Happ.

Happ was terrific, 7 innings, just 4 hits (2 of them infield hits), no walks and 9 strikeouts. He gave up a single and a double to start off the first inning and then he gave up 2 singles in the 6th. In between, 4 perfect innings. Throw in a perfect 7th and you have the best start of the season for Happ.

On the Red Sox side, Chris Sale had a bad night. He gave up 4 home runs for the first time this season, in 5 innings. In all we had 8 hits, 2 walks, 5 runs with 8 strikeouts against him.

Josh Donaldson hit solo homers in the 1st and 3rd innings. Teoscar Hernandez had his solo homer in the 5th inning (his 6th this September, tying the Jays “rookie homers in September record, matching Josh Phelps total, back in 2002). And Kendrys Morales had a 2-run shot in the 5th.

Teoscar homered again in the 8th, driving in 3, setting the September rookie record, following an RBI double from pinch hitter Ryan Goins (I still have a hard time typing ‘pinch hitter’ in front of Ryan’s name).

We had 13 hits in total. Josh and Kevin Pillar had 3 each. Teoscar and Kendrys had 2. The only Jays, in the starting lineup, not to hit were Justin Smoak (0 for 5, 2 strikeouts) and Russell Martin (0 for 3).

We gave three runs in the 8th:

• Matt Dermody gave up a Sandy Leon homer.
• After an out, Tom Koehler gave up a triple to center, on a ball that Kevin Pillar really should have caught, a double to Rajai Davis and a RBI single (right after I said I liked Koehler in the relief role....). He only got 1 out in the inning.
• Ryan Tepera came in to get the last out of the 8th, a nice quick strikeout. Three pitchers to get through one inning, September baseball at it’s best.
• I figured Tepera would get the 9th too, but Luis Santos came out instead. He pitched a 3 up 3 down inning.

Jays of the Day: Happ (.262 WPA), Josh (.173), Kendrys (.132) and I’m giving one to Teoscar, because I think 2 homers is worth a JoD even if his WPA is only .044.

No Suckage Jays.

We had 358 comments in the GameThread. I led us to victory.