Jays lose one they should have won to the Yankees

Blue Jays 3 Yankees 4

That was a frustrating game.

Aaron Sanchez pitched well but had a number of softly hit balls find holes. Aaron went 6 innings, giving up 7 hits, but only 2 of the hits were hard hit balls, thee rest were things that were just out of reach of fielders. Some games go like that.

The fifth inning was particularly frustrating. Aaron gave up a 1-out walk to the Yankee’s ninth hitter, Ronald Torreyes (that was wasn’t good Aaron). Then a Brett Gardner single that was just out of reach of Devon Travis. Aaron Judge grounded one to third that was almost a double play ball but Judge just beat it out, just a force at second. Another single just past Travis scored a run. Then Giancarlo Stanton hit a soft ground ball to second. Travis was on the third base side of the bag, in the shift, and the ball was coming right to him, but he should have charged it. He didn’t and Stanton was just barely safe. It didn’t cost us a run, cause Aaron got another ground ball, this time to Yangervis Solarte, who touched 3rd to end the inning.

Sanchez gave up 3 earned runs, but, with a bit of luck, it could have been much better. He had 2 walks and only 2 strikeouts. More strikeouts wouldn’t have hurt.

Tyler Clippard pitched the 7th, and gave up a long home run to Judge. That turned out to be a big run.

John Axford pitched a quick 8th, giving up just a walk.

Offensively, we didn’t do much, but had our chances.

We scored 1 in the 3rd inning, after Luke Maile and Devon Travis had back-to-back singles to start the inning, but we could only score one of them on a couple of ground out. Travis fouled a ball off the top of his foot and limped around first. I thought he was coming out of the game, but he stayed in.

We got 1 in the 4th. Again, our first 2 batters reached, Solarte on an error and Kevin Pillar on a hit by pitch, off his foot. Two quick outs later, Maile singled Solarte home. Again we should have scored more.

And we got our last run in the 8th. We loaded the bases with no outs, Teoscar Hernandez singled, and Smoak and Solarte walked. Bases loaded, we should have scored more than one. But Pillar struck out. Pinch hitter Curtis Granderson singled on a bloop to center, one run scored, but Smoak had to watch to see if it fell and couldn’t score. Randal Grichuk struck out, a really bad at bat, he chased low when we needed contact. Maile followed with a decently hit fly to center, but easily caught. Had Grichuk hit that we would have been tied.

We had 6 hits and 3 walks, but didn’t get the timely hits we’ve had over the past couple of weeks. The only Jay to have more than one hit was Maile.

Jays of the Day: Solarte (.175 WPA, that was a big base on balls in the 8th) and Granderson (.159 on the big pinch hit). Gibby deserves a lot of credit, he seemed to tell Granderson that he would pinch hit for Grichuk but the Yankees got Chapman up in the pen and Gibby put Granderson in for Diaz instead, not giving Chapman time to warm up.

Suckage: Grichuk (-.270, 0 for 4, 3 k, yesterday it looked like he was coming around, but today he was just lost), Pillar (-.131, 0 for 3, k, hit by pitch), Hernandez (-.125, 1 for 5, k), Diaz (-.124, 0 for 3), Travis (-.105, 1 for 4, k) and Clippard (-.073, didn’t have the number, but that home run was costly).

That was one we should have won. Tomorrow it is Marco Estrada vs. Sonny Gray. Gray has been hit hard early this season. 6.92 ERA. In 13 innings, 18 hits, 7 walks and 15 strikeouts. I hope we bump up that ERA.

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