Great start from Stroman and a 5 run 8th, Jays beat Braves

Blue Jays 6 Braves 2

We got a super start from Marcus Stroman 7 innings, 6 hits (all singles), 2 walks and 5 strikeouts. Everything was on the ground. The boxscore lists 14 groundouts to 1 flyout. That’s the Marcus of old. I hope this is the Stroman we see the rest of the way.

And he had a hard hit single in his first at bat.

Add in that he contributed some excellent defense, including getting an assistless putout at first, picking up a softly hit grounder and beating out the base runner to the base.

Until the top of the 8th, I figured I’d be typing the words ‘another great start but no offense’.

Through 7 innings we had all of 3 hits and 1 run. The run came on a Justin Smoak homer, a ball that didn’t clear the wall by all that much, but then all home runs count the same.

The top of the 8th was a lot of fun. We were tied at 1 going into it:

• Yangervis Solarte led off reaching on an error by SS Dansby Swanson. Lourdes Gurriel came in as a pinch runner. I wasn’t pleased, thinking we shouldn’t use one of our four bench players to pinch run, but when he moved to second on a wild pickoff throw, it proved that Gibby made the right move.
• Smoak popped out, I really wanted him to move up the runner from second.
• Randal Grichuk singled. Lourdes misjudged the hit, so he only moved up to third.
• Russell Martin singled scoring the go ahead run. It seemed only fair, Russell was robbed on a hard hit ball down the third base line in his last at bat. Randal to second.
• Grichuk stole third.
• Kevin Pillar singled threw the hole between first and second. Grichuk scored, Martin to third.
• Aledmys Diaz doubled scoring both runners. Pillar ran through the stop sign. In Rivera’s defense, the cutoff man bobbled the throw, but I think Kevin would have been safe anyway.
• Devon Travis doubled and we were up 6-2.
• Pinch hitter Kendrys Morales was intentionally walked, but Teoscar Hernandez hit into a double play to end the inning.

We only had 8 hits on the night, but 5 of them came in a row in the 8th. No Jay had more than 1 hit.

Our pen did the job.

Aaron Loup started the bottom of the 8th. He gave up a very softly hit single, got Freddy Freeman to strikeout on a great strike 3 pitch, but then gave up a double on a fly that landed between Hernandez and Pillar.

Seunghwan Oh came in, got a ground out (scoring a run) and a strikeout.

Tyler Clippard pitched a nice quick 9th, getting 2 strikeouts.

Jays of the Day: Stroman (.286 WPA) and lets give one to Grichuk (.090) as a representative of all the guys that hit in the 8th.

No Suckage Jays. Travis had the low mark (-.064).

We had 350 comments in a nice GameThread. I led the way, proving I can lead us to victory.