Much harder than it should have been, but Jays win

Orioles 7 Blue Jays 9 (10 innings)

Aledmys Diaz went from hero to goat to hero. After not running out a ball off the fence in the bottom of the 9th, he got the game winning hit in the 10th.

In the bottom of the 10th:

Solarte ground out. Morales went to a full count (including a strike that was off the plate), and struck out looking on a pitch right at the bottom of the zone. Martin reached on an error on new Orioles SS Tim Beckham (his second of the night). Apparently it was ruled a hit, but it was an error. Grichuck walked. Diaz up with a shot at redemption. And he got a ground ball to just sneak between the Orioles shortstop and second baseman, it went off both fielder’s gloves. I don’t think either had a play, but they could have kept Martin from scoring from second.

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That was one of those rare nights where we got good starting pitching, good hitting and good defense.

But a lousy job by Tyler Clippard in the 9th almost cost us the game.

Clippard gave up a leadoff double in the 9th, the runner went to 3rd on an error and scored on a wild pitch (a very wild pitch, roughly 5 feet over Martin’s head). A deep fly got him an out. But then Caleb Joesph homered to make it a 1-run game. A strikeout got us to two outs. Jonathan Schoop homered to tie the game.

Ryan Tepera got the last out to send us to extras. John Axford pitched a great 10th, getting 2 strikeouts.

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Sam Gaviglio had a great night. 7.2 innings, just 7 hits, 4 earned, 1 walk and 8 strikeouts. Now it was against the Orioles and the umpire had a very large strike zone, but it was good to see Sam go so deep in the game. We would be so much better off if we could use the bullpen less in the second half.

His only ‘bad’ moments were in the 5th inning, when he gave up a leadoff double and then a Tim Beckham home run. And he gave up a 2-run homer, on hit 103rd and last pitch, in the 8th inning. I was glad Gibby let him go out in the 8th. We haven’t had many starters go deep into a game this year.

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And we scored.

It didn’t look good early, we didn’t get our first hit until 1 out in the 3rd inning, when Aledmys Diaz got us our first hit and first run with his 9th homer of the year.

Then we scored 4 in the 5th inning. Russell Martin and Randal Grichuk went back-to-back to start the inning. An out later, Devon Travis walked, Curtis Granderson hit a ground rule double (the ball bouncing over the fence cost him an RBI). Teoscar Hernandez (sac fly) and Justin Smoak (double) drove the runners in.

We got 2 more in the 7th. Diaz singled then Travis tripled to the right field gap (on a hit and run). Granderson singled over a drawn in infield, scoring Travis.

And we got the winning run in the 10th.

In all we had 11 hits and 3 walks. 3 of the hits were homers.

Diaz had 4 hits. Granderson and Martin had 2 each (though one of Martin’s was an error).

Hernandez (3 k), Solarte (1 k) and Morales (2 k) had 0 fors.

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We should have walked it off in the 9th. Diaz hit a ball the opposite way. It looked like a homer off the bat, but it hit the wall in right. Diaz was slow out of the box, thinking it was out. Adam Jones over ran the ball, Diaz should have been on third, but he only got to second.

He went to 3rd on a Travis ground out, but Teoscar and Smoak both chased off the plate to strand Diaz. I was pissed off at Teoscar, he just had to make contact, but Smoak swung at pitches well off the plate too.

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We did have a silly base running moment. Morales (who reached on an error) took off from first on a called strike 3, on a full count, to Martin. I’m not sure if Morals was just running on the pitch or if he saw the pitch and figured ball (it was low and out of the zone) and took off before realizing the umpired called it a strike.

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Jays of the Day: Diaz (.658), Grichuk (.154), Martin (.151), Axford (.144) and Gaviglio (.092).

Suckage: Clippard (-.355) and Teoscar (-.238).

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We had 445 comments in the GameThread. I led us to victory.