Good start from Estrada, but bats are quiet, Jays lose

A’s 3 Blue Jays 1

We’ve been waiting for a good start from Marco Estrada and we got one. Unfortunately, we didn’t score for him.

Through 6 innings, Marco allowed just 4 hits, 1 earned (on a solo Dustin Fowler home run), no walks and 6 strikeouts.

I didn’t see anything wrong with leaving him in for the 7th, we really need to rest the bullpen when we get a chance. He got two quick outs, but then allowed 3 consecutive doubles, which added 2 earned runs to his count and knocked him out of the game. 6.2 with 3 earned isn’t bad.

Danny Barnes got the last out of the 7th. He got the first two outs of the 8th, then gave up a single, bringing Aaron Loup in to face LHB Matt Olson, getting an easy ground out.

Ryan Tepera worked through the 9th. He gave up a double and walk, but benefitted from a rare challenge that went our way. Tepera threw to second to try to pick off Mark Chapman, Urena tagged him on the helmet at about the same time Chapman touched the bag, Call on the field was safe and I didn’t think the replay showed that he was out, but we got the call.

If we could score, it would have made Marco’s start look that much better.

It looked like we should have a good day, when Brett Anderson came out of the game, with what looked like a shoulder injury, while throwing warmup pitches before the second inning.

But, reliever Josh Lucas was very good, pitching 3.2 innings, allowing just 2 hits, 1 earned, with 7 strikeouts. He was taking advantage of a rather large strike zone (but Marco did as well). Danny Coulombe followed, pitching 1.1 scoreless, getting 3 strikeouts. Chris Hatchers allowed just a single in the 7th, adding another 2 strikeouts to our total.

In all we had 6 hits, 3 walks and 15 strikeouts. Our run came from a Luke Maile pop double that fell in along the third base line and a Gio Urshela single to drive him home.

Solarte had two singles and Donaldson walked twice, they were the only batters to reach twice.

Other than that, the closest we came to scoring was Curtis Granderson trying to score from second on a Yangervis Solarte single, but being thrown out at the plate. I wasn’t against the send, since we had 2 out, but Granderson didn’t look like he was flying going around third. The throw home wasn’t great but he was out on a nice tag.

It looked like we had something going in the 8th. Smoak walked and Solarte singled, with 2 outs. But Kevin Pillar struck out for the 3rd time today. We seemed to have vintage Pillar today.

The ninth went Martin ground out 5-3 (hit it ok, but right at the fielder). Maile struck out on a full count (number 14 on the night) and Dwight Smith struck out (number 15) to put this one to rest,

It would be nice to get a timely hit once in a blue moon, but then we didn’t get many hits at all and only 1 extra base hit, a bloop double by Maile. Starting pitching had been the issue, now it’s starting pitch and the bats.

Jays of the Day: Urshela (wasn’t that the bad lady in The Little Mermaid?) had the number at .100 WPA

Suckage: Pillar (-.202, 0 for 4, 3 strikeouts), Smoak (-.100, 0 for 3, walk) and Martin (-.143, 0 for 4, 2 k).

We had 392 comments in the GameThread. I led us to crushing defeat.