Blue Jays get a series win against the Philles

Blue Jays 5 Phillies 3

Another day, another quality start. Mike Wilner tweeted that this is the first time this year we’ve had 3 quality starts in a row. I’m hoping it is a trend.

J.A. Happ went 6.2, allowed 6 hits, 3 runs, 2 earned, 2 walks with 8 strikeouts. He had a rough time in the 6th, giving up 4 straight singles and 3 runs. His troubles were helped along by a couple of errors. Carlos Santana, with a runner on first, tapped one towards third, too short and too soft for get an out, but Josh Donaldson tried anyway, throwing wide of first, allowing the runners to go to second and third. Next batter, Aaron Altherr singled to center, Kevin Pillar, rushing hoping to cut off a run at the plate, over ran the ball, which allowed Santana to score from second (he had initially stopped at third and let Altherr (the tying run) go to second. Fortunately, Happ got the next two batters.

Offensively, we did enough, though I’d wouldn’t have minded a few more runs.

We scored 2 in the 2nd. Russell Martin and Dwight Smith, Jr had back-to-back walks and Devon Travis doubled them home.

2 more in the 6th. Justin Smoak walked and Yangervis Solarte and Martin singled to load the bases. Smith, with 2 outs and a full count doubled home two.

And we got an insurance run in the 9th, Granderson hitting a 2 out homer. That was his first home run since April 24th. He, like most of the team, has had a terrible May, he was hitting .151 for the month before today.

We had 8 hits and 5 walks. Travis and Granderson were the only Jays with 2 hits. Kevin Pillar had the most unlucky 0 for 4 that you will ever see. He hit the ball hard all 4 times, two hard hit line drives right into gloves and two hard hit ground balls, both ending up being great plays by the Phillies infield.

Our bullpen did the job:

• Seunghwan Oh got the last out of the 7th and had a clean 8th, with 2 strikeouts.
• Ryan Tepera started the bottom of the 9th with a walk, just to toy with us. After that he got a ground out force at second and then a nice easy double play.

Jays of the Day: Happ (.164 WPA), Oh (.169), Smith (.142), Granderson (.118) and Travis (.094, plus a nice play in the field).

Suckage: Pillar has the number (-.098) but I don’t think it is fair to give him the ‘honor’ since he hit the ball so hard each time up.

We had 536 comments in the GameThread. BlueJayEMT led the way again. Great job.