Another 1-run loss for the Blue Jays

Red Sox 5 Blue Jays 4

Well, it might have been a series loss, but it wasn’t like it was a bad series loss. We were in both games we lost, and, with a bit of luck, we could have won both.

Marco Estrada started well. He gave up a single in the first, and struck out the side in the second (getting his 1000th strikeout in the process). He gave up a pair of doubles in the third. He gave up another run in the fourth, but, if Devon Travis had been able to get the ball out of his glove, on a fairly easy double play ball, he would have got out of the inning.

The fifth inning was the bad one. Marco got the first two outs, nice and quick. Then a hard hit single, followed by a bloop single, falling between the infield and the ourfield. That set up a 3-run homer for J.D. Marinez.

Aaron Loup was great for 2 innings of relief work. No base runners, 2 strikeouts, living on the bottom of the strike zone. I would have left him out for a 3rd inning.

Seung Hwan Oh pitched a nice 8th.

Offensively, we had more luck with Chris Sale than I would have expected. In 6 innings, we had 4 hits, 2 walks, 4 strikeouts and 3 runs off him. But, as always, we really should have scored more. We scored:

• 1 in the first: Teoscar Hernandez took a 1-out walk, Justin Smoak had a bloop single (Teoscar read it well and got to third) and Yangervis Solarte took a pitch off the inside of his right knee to load the bases. I thought he was hurt, but he stayed in the game. Kevin Pillar hit a sac fly scoring Teoscar. It was interesting, Kevin chased strike one high out of the zone, chased strike two, higher out of the zone and then hit the fly ball off a pitch at head level. Kevin Barker said what a great at bat it was, but I’d have preferred Pillar to wait for a pitch in the zone.
• 1 in the second: Travis hit his first home run of the season.
• 1 in the third: Justin Smoak homered.
• 1 in the seventh: Travis hit a 1-out triple and scored on pinch hitter Kendrys Morales’ ground ball that went through the pitcher. Teoscar followed with a double, but Smoak struck out to end the inning.

We had a good chance to tied in the 8th. Pillar and pinch-hitter Curtis Granderson took two out walks and moved up on a Randal Grichuk ground out. Grichuk might have been safe, the throw pulled Mitch Moreland off the bag, but we lost the replay appeal. Luke Maile struck out to end the inning. I think his time as Cinderella has run out.

I thought we had a shot in the ninth. Travis struck out on a full count pitch. Then Morales popped out.

We had 0 fors from Morales, Steve Pearce, Solare, Lourdes Gurriel (who smoked one a fly ball in the first, that J.D. Martinez made a excellent running catch on), Grichuk and Maile.

Jays of the Day: Travis (.092 WPA, for the homer and triple, his number would have been better without the ninth inning strikeout), Granderson (.092, all on the pinch hit walk) and I’m giving one to Loup for his 2 innings of work (.079).

Suckage: Estrada (-.317), Maile (-.245, for an 0 for 4, 3 k) and Grichuk (-.129, for an 0 for 4. If they had overturned the out at first in the 8th).

I can’t get the Roll Call site to work, I’ll put in the comments leader board when/if it gets working.