Jays fail to pick up sweep

White Sox 4 Blue Jays 3

The bottom of the 5th might have been the strangest inning we’ve been through since Game 5 against the Rangers.

Let’s go over it.

• Wellington Castillo started the inning with a walk.
• Yolmer Sanchez singled.
• Tim Anderson struck out.
• Adam Engel was hit by an Aaron Sanchez pitch.

Bases loaded one out.

Then Yoan Moncada lined a fly ball to the wall in left. Curtis Granderson jumped and had the ball hit his glove but he missed the catch. Falling to the ground, the ball came down and he caught it. We thought it was an out.

So did the third base umpire, who called an out.

What he couldn’t see, and from where he was it’s very understandable, was that the ball hit the wall.

The runner on third....either seeing the missed catch (which is what it looked like at first, until the ball followed Granderson to the ground) or deciding it wasn’t going to be catch, took off for home. Then, of course, the umpire at third makes the out call, so back he goes to third. By then it is too late to tag up and score.

The White Sox challenged the call, and, with the help of replay, it was easy to see that the ball hit the wall, so it wasn’t a catch, and the umpires moved all the runners up a base.

It was the right call, but, like Martin hitting the batter’s bat in game 5 of the Rangers game, it seemed like we got ripped off.

Beyond that, Aaron Sanchez wasn’t very sharp. He hit 2 batters, gave up 5 hits, 2 walks, 1 homer, but just 3 runs in 6 innings. He did have 7 strikeouts and the Jays turned 3 double plays behind him.

He was kind of lucky to get out of there with just three runs against. He did have some troubles with the plate umpire. In that fun 5th inning, Aaron felt he wasn’t given long enough to warm up before the inning. And he wasn’t always happy with the calls from behind the plate.

Seung-hwan Oh pitched the 7th, giving up a 1-out single, but finishing the inning with a pair of strikeouts.

Ryan Tepera give up a massive Jose Abreu homer to lead off the 8th inning, that turned out to be the winning run. He also hit a batter, but had a very nice double play turned behind him by Devon Travis and Gift Ngoepe.

Aaron Loup pitched a very quick 9th, getting 2 strikeouts.

We didn’t have an easy time against White Sox starter Carson Fulmer, but did manage 3 runs against him in 6 innings.

We scored:

• 1 run in the 4th on back-to-back doubles by Justin Smoak and Curtis Granderson (both off outfielders gloves, on Smoak’s CFer Adam Engel ran a long way back, but got there and then seemed relax too much and clanked it. On Granderson’s RFer Avisaíl García almost made a great catch on a ball slicing away from him. Unfortunately, we didn’t score Granderson from second with 2 outs.
• 2 runs in the 6th. We started the inning with 3 straight hits. Josh Donaldson singled, Justin Smoak doubled and Steve Pearce (pinch hitting) singled home Josh. After Randal Grichuk struck out and Russell Martin hit into a force at home (having Smoak run on contact seems like a bad idea), Kendrys Morales singled in the (then) tying run.

We had 7 hits and 1 walk on the game. No home runs today, for the first time this year.

We had 0 fors from Travis, Grichuk (3 strikeouts), Martin, Pillar and Ngoepe. Each of them could have changed the outcome if they could have gotten a hit at the right time.

We didn’t exactly go out with a roar. In the 9th, Martin struck out. Then Morales should have had a walk, but got a bad call from the ump, and then he hit a fly out to medium center, which cost Kendrys a JoD. Kevin Pillar struck out to end the game.

Jays of the Day: Smoak (.150 WPA), and Oh (.091)

Suckage: Grichuk (-.249), Tepera (-.183), Martin (-.249) and Pillar (-.182).

The Jays go 4-3 in their opening home stand. Pretty good really. They have tomorrow off and then we play the ever so unfun Rangers in Texas.

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