Stroman wasn’t good and neither were the bats, Jays lose to Rangers

Blue Jays 1 Rangers 5

That was just one of those games.

Marcus Stroman wasn’t sharp. He had a hard time hitting his spots, and finding the strike zone. And when he did find the strike zone he wasn’t getting the calls. And yet, he made it through the first 4 innings allowing just 1 run. It was a bit of a magic act, as he gave up 7 baserunners over those 4 innings.

The magic ran out in the 5th. He gave up a pair of walks to start the inning. Two outs later it looked like he might work his way out of another jam. But a balk and back-to-back doubles, scored 3. Marcus out and Danny Barnes in to allow 2 more singles and the game was about over.

Marcus went 4.2, allowed 6 hits, 5 earned, 5 walks with 3 strikeouts. It would have helped if he could have got some calls on the edges early in the game, but then he was pretty much all over the place.

Barnes had trouble finishing off the 5th inning, but pitched a quick 6th.

Tyler Clippard threw a quick 7th. And John Axford did the same in the 8th.

Offensively we didn’t do much. Rangers starter Mike Minor had a no-hitter going until 1 out in the fifth, when Kevin Pillar tripled. We couldn’t score him. The only other hit was had off minor was a 5th inning home run from Steve Pearce.

We didn’t have any more luck against the Rangers bullpen. Kevin Jepsen pitched 2 perfect innings. Jake Diekman pitched the 9th. The Pearce homer would be the last hit we would get.

No Jays of the Day. Pillar had the high mark with a .072 WPA.

Suckage: Barnes (-.116) and you could share one out among the lineup minus Pillar and Pearce.

I did appreciate Marcus having Humbolt written on his cap. It’s been such a depressing day, it would have been nice to have a win, but it was good to have something else to focus on.

We had 557 comments in out GameThread. Alan F. led the way. Good job sir.