Offense lets us down again, Jays lose to Yankees

Blue Jays 1 Yankees 2

Once again, we didn’t get enough offense. That’s been the story of the season.

I was surprised when Gibby pulled Marcus Stroman after just 4 innings. Maybe there was a blister issue. Marcus did have a tough 4th inning. He gave up a crushed Aaron Judge home run, to lead off the inning. And he gave up 3 singles, to score the Yankees’ second run. In all 4 innings, 6 hits, 1 walk and 2 strikeouts. Not great, but then he wasn’t terrible.

The bullpen pitched us 4 scoreless innings:

• Aaron Loup gave up 2 walks, getting just 1 out, in the 5th inning.
• Carlos Ramirez finished off the 5th, without letting the inherited runners score, and gave up a single in the 6th, but didn’t allow a run. He had 2 strikeouts.
• Matt Dermody gave up a walk and got an out, in the 7th.
• Dominic Leone followed and got 2 strikeouts to get out of the inning (Aaron Judge and Gary Sanchez were his victims).
• And Tim Mayza pitched a nice quick 8th, getting two strikeouts.

We didn’t do a lot offensively.

We got our run in the 8th inning. Ezequiel Carrera started it off with a single. Miguel Montero walked. After a Ryan Goins strikeout, Teoscar Hernandez walked to load the bases. Josh Donaldson hit a fly to medium left field (it looked like he hit it better, David Robertson looked like he thought it was out, and Brett Gardner’s first couple of steps were back). Carrera scored on the play, Gardner’s throw was a little off line or he would have had Ezequiel. Justin Smoak followed with a strikeout. Smoak is in a pretty bad slump, which is enough to make us worry about next year. Never slump at the beginning or the end of a season. It is rough on us fans.

Other than that, the closest we came to scoring was a Ryan Goins fly to left, on which a fan reached over the wall to catch. It seemed like a home run for a moment, but it was fan interference for a double. Goins was stranded at second, after Hernandez struck out and Donaldson flied out.

We had 6 hits and 2 walks in total. Hernandez was the only Jay to reach base twice, with a single and a walk. Goins had the only extra base hit of the game.

On the defensive side, we may have seen the last outfield assist of Jose Bautista’s career. A very nice throw on a Greg Bird liner to the wall in right. Jose played it perfectly and threw a strike to second, getting Bird easily. It was nice to be reminded how great an arm Jose had.

Jays of the Day? Miguel Montero had the number (.107 WPA), all for his pinch hit walk...but I can’t give him one for just that. Let’s give one to Ramirez for his 1.2 excellent innings of relief.

Suckage? Most of the batting lineup: Smoak (-.203, 0 for 4, k), Donaldson (-.175, 0 for 3, k, sac fly), Bautista (-.175, 0 for 4, 3 k, but had the great throw) and Goins (-.102, 1 for 3, 1 k). Goins’ is slightly unfair since he almost homered, but he also struck out in a ‘clutch’ moment.

Tomorrow, at 3:00 eastern we have our last game of the season. I’m not all that sad to put this one in my rear view mirror, but I’m sure, in a month or so, I’ll be wishing for baseball back.

We had a pretty slow GameThread, just 181 comments. I led the way.