Today in Blue Jays History: Jays beat Rangers in 18 innings

Five years ago today:

The Blue Jays and Rangers played 18 innings, and the Jays won. I really love long extra inning games.

The end came with the help of an error. From the recap:

You just knew it would take an error to end that game and, thankfully, the Rangers made the error. Pitcher Ross Wolf threw wild on a pickoff attempt on Emilio Bonifacio, allowing Emilio to get to third, and Rajai Davis came through with the hit with the RISP we had been looking for for most of the afternoon.

The Jays used 9 pitchers. And the winner was the one guy who is still on the roster, Aaron Loup. Other pitchers:

• Mark Buehrle started and pitched 7 innings, allowing just a run.
• Steve Delabar pitched an inning. Delabar was an All-Star that year.
• Casey Janssen pitched the 9, and blew the save, giving up 2 runs. Being fair, Casey only had 2 blown saves all year. He would save 34 games that year.
• Dustin McGowan, pitching for the first time since September 2011, didn’t do all that well, he walked a man, the next batter reached on error (Mark DeRosa’s throwing error) and then hit a batter, before getting a strikeout for the first out of the 10th inning. After the strikeout he was replaced by Juan Perez, who got a fly ball to right and Jose Bautista made a great throw to get Lance Berkman trying to score. Perez would pitch 2 innings.
• Neil Wagner got the last two outs of the 12th.
• Brett Cecil pitched an inning.
• Brad Lincoln went 4 innings, allowing a hit and a walk, with 3 strikeouts. Brad didn’t have a great season, and only pitched in 22 games, but he was very good that night.
• And Loup pitched the 18.

Our batting lineup:

1. Melky Cabrera led off, and went 0 for 4 before Rajai Davis took over going 2 for 5 and driving in the winning run.
2. Jose Bautista: 2 for 8, with a game saving throw getting the runner at the plate.
3. Edwin Encarnacion: 1 for 6, 2 walks.
4. Adam Lind: 4 for 7, walk.
5. J.P. Arencibia: 2 for 8, 3 k.
6. Colby Rasmus: 3 for 8, 2 k. He had our only extra base hit of the day, a triple.
7. Maicer Izturis: 0 for 7, walk.
8. Emilio Bonifacio: 2 for 8, and scored the winning run.
9. Munenori Kawasaki: 0 for 3. Mark DeRosa pinch hit and came in at 3rd 0 for 2, walk. Josh Thole pinch hit for DeRosa 0 for 2.

From the recap:

Jays of the Day: Lincoln (.570 WPA), Perez (.499), Buehrle (.297), Cecil (.143), Loup (.143 and the win), Wagner (.142), Davis (.223) and Rasmus (.141).

Suckage: Janssen (-.280), Izturis (-.367), DeRosa (-.183, plus the error), Thole (-.132)

The Jays were in 5th place, 10 games back at 27-34. It wouldn’t get better, we finished 5th, 23 games back.