Luke Maile hits walk-off home run, Jays beat Red Sox

Red Sox 3 Blue Jays 5 (12 innings)

I’m forgiving Luke Maile for last year.

That was a terrific finish to a game. Top of the 12th, Curtis Granderson walks and Luke hits his second homer of the game.

Maile is hitting .339 now.

Sam Gaviglio gets a win, pitching 3 scoreless innings in his first appearance for the Jays this year.

That one had some of everything.

I was hoping for a great start from Aaron Sanchez, instead we got a pretty good one. It didn’t start the way we would have liked, he gave up a leadoff walk and a single to the start the first, but only one run would score.

2 more runs scored in the fourth, but only 1 was his fault. He gave up a leadoff homer. And then a single, but he righted things, getting two ground ball force outs at second. The second of the two was an easy double play, but Yangervis Solarte had the ball stick in his glove and he threw high to Lourdes Gurriel. Gurriel did well to keep his foot on the bag to get the one out, but we should have had two.

It looked like he was out inning when threw strike 3 past Sandy Leon, but Luke Maile dropped the ball, lost it and then threw well wide of first for an error, allowing the Red Sox to score a go-ahead run. Maile should have know better than to throw it.

Sanchez went 5 innings, allowed 5 hits, 2 earned (with the 1 unearned run), 3 walks and 4 strikeouts. Not a pretty pitching line, but, compared to what our starters have been doing of late, it looked pretty good.

Once again the bullpen kept us in the game. John Axford, Seunghwan Oh, Ryan Tepera and Tyler Clippard each pitched a scoreless inning, without giving up a hit.

Sam Gaviglio was great. He pitched 3 scoreless innings. He kept the Red Sox off the board in the 10th even with a Gurriel error and a stolen base. We’ve needed a long man. I’m hoping we keep him for the job.

Offensively, we didn’t get many hits against Chris Sale, but we made them count. We got:

• 1 in the first: Teoscar Hernandez doubled on the first pitch of the game and Josh Donaldson singled him home.
• 1 in the second: Kendrys Morales started the inning off with his first hit since May 2nd, a ground rule double. He moved to third on a deep fly to the right field corner and scored on a Luke Maile single.
• 1 in the 7th: Maile made up for his error by ending Sale’s streak of 14 straight outs by taking him just barely over the wall in left, tying the game up.

We had 8 hits on the night. Maile had 3, 2 homers and a single. Pillar had 2, but then was throw out trying for a triple on one of them.

I thought we had a shot in the 9th. Kevin Pillar hit one to the wall in right, with one out, but he tried to stretch his double into a triple. He was out, but just barely out. We asked for a review but it wasn’t overturned. It was way too close to tell.

Course, then, in the top of the 10th, after reaching on a Lourdes Gurriel, Mookie Betts tried to steal second, he was called out on the field, but the review overturned it.

We had a terrific defensive play in the 3rd inning. With Hanley Ramirez on first, J.D. Martinez hit a fly to right that hit within 2 feet of the top of the fence, almost a homer. Hernandez got to the wall, jumped but was well short of catching it. Kevin Pillar very neatly backed up the play, getting the ball off the wall and made a good throw to Gurriel, the cut off man. Gurriel made a perfect throw home and we got the out. Hanley ran through a stop sign at third. I’m so glad he did. Red Sox challenged the plate on the collision rule, but Maile had the ball well in time to be where he was.

We had our shot to win in the 10th. Curtis Granderson and Luke Maile walked to start the inning. Dalton Pompey came in to pinch hit. First pitch he popped up a bunt foul. Thankfully the third baseman charged too hard and it went over him (if they didn’t have the wheel play on, the 3B would have caught it and had an easy double play, maybe triple play with the runners moving). Next pitch Dalton took a swing at, but it was high out of the zone. And then they put the bunt back on and he bunted foul for strike three. Bad at bat and dumb move to bunt with two strikes. Bunts with runners on first and second rarely work and you have 2 on, no outs, why not put pressure on the pitcher.

Teoscar followed with a fly to right field. Hit decent but right at the fielder. Donaldson struck out to end the inning.

Kevin Pillar had a 2-out single in the 11th and stole second but Morales struck out.

Jays of the Day: Gaviglio (.433 WPA), Maile (.663), Granderson (.147) and Tepera (.111).

Suckage: Solarte (-.182, 0 for 5, 2 k, plus the ball getting stuck in his glove on the double play chance), Smoak (-.180, 0 for 5, 4 k, had no chance against Sale), Morales (-.168 1 for 5, double), Pompey (-.108 off the bunt strikeout) and Donaldson (-.135, 1 for 5, 4 k, most of them on check swings called strikes).

We had 1,097 comments in the GameThread. westbromjayfan led us to victory. Good job sir.