Blue Jays get walked off

Blue Jays 0 Rays 1

When you give up just 5 hits (4 singles and a double) and still lose, this recap is being brought to you by the word frustration.

The first few innings were very frustrating. We would get a base runner, or two, and then leave him there. Through 7 innings we had left 7 on base (and hit into 2 double plays) and we were 0 for 7 with RISP. We really should have had a nice early lead. But no.

J.A. Happ was good, but also frustrating. He gave up just 1 hit, but only went 5 innings. He was that Happ that I hated from his first time with the Jays. He’d get up 0-2 and then pitch to a full count. He gave up 3 walks, likely would have been worse against a team that was more willing to take walks and he had 4 strikeouts.

A 1-hitter is great, but the way our bullpen has been, I really want more than 5 innings. So good start, I shouldn’t complain, but need our starters to go deeper.

Our bullpen:

• Seunghwan Oh hit a batter, but got through the 6th without a problem and had2 k.
• Danny Barnes gave up a double in the 7th, but got out of the inning.
• Aaron Loup started the 8th, and gave up a very very softly hit single. Truly not fair.
• Ryan Tepera came in. He got a ground out, moving up the runner, walk C.J. Cron (semi intentionally) and got a strikeout and ground out. Going out for a second inning, Ryan got a strikeout, then Mallex Smith hit one to the wall for a double. Johnny Field ground out to short, but Mallex was running on the pitch and went to third. Diaz had to be careful on that throw. Next batter, Matt Duffy, hit a ground ball single and that was the game.

Offensively, we did nothing much. 5 hits, all singles, Curtis Granderson had 3 of them. One each for Teoscar Hernandez and Yangervis Solarte.

We had 2 on/1 out in the first. 2 on/no outs in the second. Leadoff guy on in the third. 2 on in the fourth. But we couldn’t score.

We only struck out 5 times, but we had so much weak contact.

We did have some good fielding. Grichuk had 3 excellent catches. Diaz made some nice plays at short. Gio Urshela had a couple of nice plays at third. The defense was the best part of watching today’s game.

Jays of the Day: Happ (.279 WPA) and Granderson (.127).

Suckage: Tepera (-.193), Smoak (-.225, 0 for 4, he was robbed of a hit his last time at bat), Urshela (-.172, 0 for 3) and Diaz (-.116, 0 for 3. He hit one in the 9th that I was sure was going to be a home run, but was caught at the wall).

We had 438 comments in the GameThread. I led us to the loss again.