One bad inning, Jays lose to Yankees

Blue Jays 1 Yankees 9

One bad inning can really spoil a day.

Going into the bottom of the 6th, we were down 2-1, but not too worried just yet. Marcus Stroman was doing the job. Through 5 innings, he allowed just 2 hits and 2 walks. One of the hits was a Aaron Judge home run, but other than that, he really hadn’t been in trouble all game.

That changed in the 6th. In the 6th:

• Brett Gardner singled and went to second on a ‘wild pitch’.
• Aaron Judge walked on 4 pitches. I was ok with that.
• Didi Gregorius singled home Gardner. Runners move up to second and third on another wild pitch.
• Giancarlo Stanton walk, bases loaded.
• Aaron Hicks tapped one towards the first base like, Marcus made a nice play, flipping it back handed to the plate, but Luke Maile dropped it. Maile should have had it, it wasn’t a tough play, other than the runner sliding towards him. That out could have changed things.
• Neil Walker struck out.
• Miguel Andujar doubled everyone home on a 2-2 pitch.

And that was it for Stroman. You could complain that Gibby left him in too long, but then, we need a starter to get us some innings, sooner or later. And Marcus has to get himself out of some jams occasionally. I don’t have too much against the idea of leaving him in. Had Maile held on to that throw......

John Axford came in, one out, runner on second. He gave up a walk, single, sac fly, RBI single, before getting out of the inning.

The game went from 2-1 to 9-1 in a hurry.

Offensively, we had our chances early:

• We loaded the bases, with 1 out in the 3rd inning, but Teoscar Hernandez struck out and Yangervis Solarte popped out. No runs.
• To start the 5th, Randel Grichuk walked, Lourdes Gurriel singled, and Steve Pearce singled in our only run. Gurriel and Pearce moved up to second taking advantage of a terrible throw from Gardner. But, Hernandez struck out again, Solarte popped out and Morales ground out.

From the 6th inning on, we didn’t get a hit.

We’ve seen the good from Teoscar, today we saw the bad, he struck out twice with less than two out and runners on. He looked anxious. And he almost ran into Kevin Pillar in the outfield.

We also saw the bad Pillar, also 0 for 4 with 2 strikeouts and strikeouts chasing. But then Luke Maile (0 for 4, 1 k) and Yangervis Solarte (0 for 4, 1 k) looked bad too.

Randal Grichuk took two nice walks, but then struck out in his 3rd at bat.

Lourdes Gurriel was 1 for 3 in his second career start.

We only had 4 hits and 3 walks today.

Jays of the day: Steve Pearce (.115 WPA), Grichuck (.106) and Gurriel (.105) all had the number.

Suckage: Stroman (-.230), Hernandez (-.181), Solarte (-.184) and Pillar (-.096).

We haven’t had many bad games this season, I’m hoping this is a one-off. Tomorrow it is Jaime Garcia vs. Severino. We haven’t lost a series yet this season, We need a win tomorrow to keep that up.

We had 697 comments in the GameThread. TimmyMax led the way. Great job.