Blue Jays win in extras

Orioles 4 Blue Jays 5 (10 innings)

The bottom of the ninth was our best inning of baseball in almost 2 months.

With 1 out, Maile walked and Aledmys Diaz doubled. Then Randal Grichuk doubled them home, becoming the tying run at second. Pinch hitter Devon Travis walked, putting the winning run on base. Then Kevin Pillar singled home Grichuk to tie the game and put the winning run at second.

Yangervis Sorlarte (who needs someone to tell him he doesn’t have to swing at everything) ended the fun by bouncing into a double play and sent us to extras. He was 0 for 5 tonight and looks lost at the plate.

The bottom of the 10th started well, Teoscar Hernandez lined one to left center, I thought he made a mistake trying to stretch it into a double, but he was safe. Justin Smoak was intentional walked. Kendrys Morales, having a good game to this point, struck out on a full count pitch. And then it was Luke Maile’s turn to strikeout on a full count pitch.

It was down to Aledmys Diaz. He got to a 1-2 count and then lined one to the wall in left to win the game.

A win! I remember this feeling.

Up until the bottom of the ninth, it looked to be the same sad story we have heard too much: We had an excellent start from our starting pitcher, but couldn’t score and the bullpen gave up runs late.

We had 12 hits, which is like a week’s worth of hits lately. But we could only score one run against O’s starter David Hess, a leadoff homer by Curtis Granderson in the first inning.

The only Jays more than 1 hit were Randal Grichuk with 3 and Teoscar Hernandez and Kendrys Morales with 2.

Jaime Garcia was terrific. 6 innings, 4 hits, 1 earned, 3 walks and 6 strikeouts. Once again, it was too bad we couldn’t score for him, he deserved a win.

I didn’t notice this during the game:

Unfortunately, our bullpen wasn’t terrific:

• Tyler Clippard gave up a home run to someone named Austin Wynns in the 7th.
• John Axford did one better, giving up homers to Danny Valencia and Mark Trumbo, in the 8th, and it looked like this one was over.

After that they did better:

• Aaron Loup came in to face Chris Davis and got the last out of the inning.
• Seunghwan Oh had a nice 3 up 3 down 9th.
• Danny Barnes did the same in the 10th, which earned him the win.

Jays of the Day: Diaz (.350 WPA), Garcia (.267), Barnes (.144), Pillar (.339), Hernandez (.137) and Grichuk (.228)

Suckage: Clippard (-.128), Axford (-.173), Solarte (-.325), Maile (-.134) and Urshela (-.108).

We had 443 comments in the GameThread. Alan F. led us to victory.