A lack of timely hitting give the Jays a loss on Mother’s Day

Red Sox 5 Blue Jays 3

Personally I didn’t think Joe Biagini pitched a bad game. He gave up two in the first, a lined hard hit single, but then a ball sliced off the end of J.D. Martinez’ bat carried over the right field wall. Home runs that hit the sweet part of the bat are one thing, home runs where the pitcher gets the sort of contact that he’s looking for, well that’s another thing.

He gave up another run in the third. A walk, a hit and run style single, what would have been a double play ball if the second baseman hadn’t moved. After an out, another walk. And then a walk that really should have been a strikeout, but for a terrible Jerry Meals call, bringing in a run. A double play ball ended the inning.

And another run in the 5th, a 1-out single, steal, fly out and Gibby took Biagini out of the game. John Axford gave up a single, giving Joe another earned run.

It wasn’t a great start, but he didn’t give up much for hard contact, just 4 hits total, and he was the victim Meals’ rather freestyle strike zone. The odd blown strike call corrected would have made for a much better outing.

I thought he pitched better than Pomeranz, who gave up 5 hits and 5 walks in 4 innings, we just didn’t drive in the runs.

As usual, our bullpen got their work in:

• John Axford allowed the inherited runner to score but pitched a clean sixth.
• Sam Gaviglio pitched 1.1, gave up 1 hit, 1 earned, 1 walk with 3 strikeouts. He looked good again.
• Tyler Clippard had a nice quick eighth, but struggled in the ninth, giving up a leadoff double (thankfully Holt was thrown out trying to steal 3rd) and a single that would have score Holt. Then a walk and I was wondering why he was still out there, but he got a ground out to end the inning.

We had many chances to score. We had:

• 2 on, 1 out and didn’t score in the first.
• 2 on, no outs and didn’t score in the second.
• 1 on, 1 out in the third and, you know.
• 1 on, 1 out in the fourth.
• 1 on, 1 out in the sixth.
• And the worst one in the seventh. Yangervis Solarte get a single. An out later, Russell Martin doubles down the line. Solarte was sent home, even though there was no real chance of him scoring. He made it closer than I figured, with a nice slide, but he wasout easy.
• Morales led off the 8th with a single, but didn’t advance. That gives Kendrys 6 hits this month.

The only inning we didn’t get a baserunner was the ninth.

But we did get 3 runs in the fifth. Hits from Teoscar Hernandez, Josh Donaldson (both singles) and a Justin Smoak double got us two runs. A Solarte walk, and an out later, a Russell Martin single got our other run. But Kendrys Morals ground one right at the pitcher for a double play to end the inning.

We had 10 hits and 5 walks, that should have added up to more than 3 runs. Russell Martin had 3 hits (nice to see him swinging the bat well) and Josh Donaldson had 2.

Jays of the Day: Lets give one to Smoak for the 2-run double.

Suckage: Biagini (-.115) gets the number. Also Pillar (-.220 on a 0 for 4, 2 k), Hernandez (-.132 on a 1 for 5, 1 k), Granderson (-.111, 0 for 2, k), Alford (-.098, 0 for 2, 2 k) and Urena (-.097, 1 for 4, 1 k).

Tomorrow’s an off-day then we play 2 NL games vs the Mets.

I want to mention a comment from Buck Martinez that, I thought, belonged in the 1950s, not today. He acknowledged Mother’s Day saying Moms ‘took their kids to sports when the father was busy at work’. My wife went to almost every game my kids played, not because of my job, but because she loved watching them play. And she was busy with work It’s was just incredibly sexist.

I mentioned it above but Jerry Meals only seemed to have a passing understanding of the strikezone.

We had 755 comments in the GameThread. DangYouToHeck returns from his honeymoon to lead us. Great job sir.