Blue Jays lose in extras

Blue Jays 2 Red Sox 6 (10 innings)

Lourdez Gurriel has been so good of late, at least until the bottom of the 10th.

In the bottom of the 10th, Chris Rowley came in. Tzu-Wei Lin ground out. Mookie Betts hit an easy ground ball to short and it went right through Gurriel. Terrible moment.

Next batter, hit and run, Lourdes goes to cover the bag and, of course, it was hit right where he was before he left for the bag. The other day, on a hit and run, the second baseman went to the bag and the ball went right to second. This time, it goes to short. That’s baseball.

J.D. Martinez was intentionally walked....I hate intentional walks. Xander Bogaerts followed with a walk-off homer.

Not a fun way to lose.

I definitely didn’t think we were going to get a pitchers duel today.

Sam Gaviglio, pitching on short rest, looked better than he has in weeks. He went 3.1, pretty much the top end of what we could expect, allowed 4 hits, 1 walk, 2 strikeouts. The bad moment was a J.D. Martinez home run. That was Martinez’ 29 home run of the year, so there is no shame in giving one up to him.

The bullpen took over:

• Tim Mayza went 1.2, allowed 1 hit and 1 walk with 3 strikeouts.
• Luis Santos went 2.0, 1 hit, 1 strikeout.
• Biagini gave up a 1-out single, in the 8th, to Mookie Betts, with Betts going to second on a Yangeris Solarte throwing error. Betts stole third, but Brock Holt ground out to the drawn in infield and J.D. Martinez struck out.
• But Tyler Clippard gave up back to back doubles to start the 9th, tying the game. After a strikeout, Tyler went full count to Blake Swihart, before he hit a medium fly to center. A ground out later and we were off to extra innings.

We didn’t do all that much offensively. We got our 2 runs in the 7th. Kendrys Morales led off with a single, Dwight Smith doubled. Kendrys scored on Aledmys Diaz’ ground out, and, after a Luke Maile walk, Smith scored on a single from Lourdes Gurriel.

We only had 7 hits. Gurriel had 3 of them, the offensive start and the defensive goat. Morales had 2 hits plus a walk. Smith and Randel Grichuk had 1 hit each.

Of note, Kevin Pillar made a terrific diving catch, in the bottom of the 3rd inning and left the game with a right SC (sternoclavicular) joint injury. No word yet on how long he might be out, but I’m not expecting he’ll be in tomorrow’s game, the last one before the All-Star break. We don’t know if he’ll have to go on the DL.

Teoscar Hernandez made a nice throw on a 9-3 double play. With Blake Swihart on first, Sandy Leon hit a fly ball to left, Gurriel and Aledmys Diaz decoyed like it was a ground ball. Infielder do that all the time, you rarely see it work. This time it did. Swihart was past second base before he knew it was a fly ball, Teoscar threw to first and he was out.

In the 6th inning, Gurriel hit a grounder towards first base. He and pitcher Eduardo Rodriguez got to the bag about the same time, but the throw to Rodriguez was off line and Gurriel dived into the bag (trying to avoid contack). Rodriquez, awkwardly, tried to step over Lourdes and, accidently, kicked him in the head. Gurriel was down for a bit, starting our usual argument about taking guys out of the game, when there is the chance of concussion. I always want to err on the side of caution (he says with a son recovering from a rugby tackle concussion). But, Lourdes looked ok. Rodriguez let the game with an ankle injury.

Jays of the Day: Santos (.166 WPA), Biagini (.151), Smith (.177) and Morales (.101). Gurriel had a .228, but that doesn’t count the error. I mean, if a couple of other guys had hit like he did today, we would have won before the 10th inning, but you gotta make that play.

Suckage: Rowley has a -.350, but that’s because of the error and the hit and run. If Lourdes makes the easy play, we would have been off the field before the homer. Clippard (-.279), Solarte (-.202, 0 for 5, 3 k and a throwing error), Grichuk (-.185, 1 for 4, 1 k) and Hernandez (-.115 0 for 4, walk, 2 k).

We had 477 comments in the GameThread. BlueJayEMT led the way. Good job sir.