Gurriel hits 2 homers, Jays win big

Blue Jays 10 White Sox 5

Before the recap, I gotta talk about a play I’ve never seen before:

5th inning, Jays up 8 to 1. Bases loaded, 1 out. Chicago pitcher, Thyago Viera had been wild that inning, hitting 2 Jays. He throws a ball a bit short of the plate, he bounces through the catcher and Russell Martin starts coming from third. The ball landed right under the umpire, everyone’s favorite, CB Bucknor and Martin looks to be a dead duck. But Bucknor calls dead ball and sends Martin back to third.

Not surprisingly, the White Sox were curious about the ruling and, very politely asked Bucknor ‘Are you out of your mind, what was that?’, or words to that effect, likely laced with some obscenities.

CB, nicely, goes to talk with his fellow umpires (who I’m thinking likely ask the same question the White Sox did, maybe with less swearing). And, suddenly, CB is moving all the Jays base runners up, giving us a run. Now, if I was a coach with the White Sox, I’d still be screaming about it, but they, I guess, considered the source and played on.

I guess what he ruled was: When the ball bounced past the catcher, it sort of, kind of, ended up in Bucknor’s hands. I wouldn’t say he caught it, but maybe trapped it against his padding. He dropped it almost instantly, but I guess he called it a dead ball and ruled that, without his ‘interference’ it would have been a wild pitch and runners would have moved up. Normally, umpires are part of the field.

Personally, it seemed wrong. If he had sent Russell back to third, saying dead ball, I would have nodded my head and said stuff happens. But giving us a run? It seems like he gave a penalty to the Sox, when it wasn’t their fault.

Maybe the Sox didn’t argue because they had two coaches thrown out in the first inning?

Anyway, offensively it was one of those fun games. Our first 2 batters, Curtis Granderson and Lourdes Gurriel homered. We didn’t score again in the first, even though Smoak followed with a single then Morales walked. The Morales walk got the Sox manager and pitching coach thrown out. Full count, Smoak running on the full count, Morales had a half swing, throw to second and Smoak would have been out, but it was called a ball. It was a 50/50 call, Sox were mad it went the way of the Jays.

We scored 3 more in the 2nd inning: Martin walked and Randal Grichuk homered. An out later, Granderson walked, Gurriel was called out on a strike that looked like a ball, and Smoak doubled home Curtis.

One more scored in the 4th on Gurriel’s second homer of the game. That made it 9 games multi-hit games in a row.

Four more scored in the 5th. Morales crushed homer. Teoscar Hernandez walks (he took some close pitches) and the Sox pulled starter Reynaldo Lopez. In came Vieira. He gave up a Martin double, scoring Teoscar. Then Grichuk and Travis were hit by pitches. Grichuk’s was a curve that didn’t, Travis’ was a fastball that caught him on the wrist. Then there was the stuff over-analyzed above and a sac fly.

We had 9 hits, 4 walks and the 2 hit batters. 4 of the hits were home runs. 32 were doubles. Our hitters liked Lopez.

Gurriel 3 hits, the 2 homers and a double (his double came on a great 12 pitch at bat). Smoak had 2 hits each.

Marcus Stroman had a terrific night. 6.2 inning, 7 hits (2 of them with 2 outs in the 7th, when he was over 100 pitches), 1 walk, 2 earned, 3 strikeouts.

As usual, when he’s doing well, he got a lot of ground balls. 12 ground outs, 1 fly out (in the 7th). Nice to see from Marcus.

Joe Biagini got the last out of the 7th and pitched the 8th, without allowing a baserunner.

Oliver Drake pitched the 9th. It went double, double, wild pitch, strikeout (2 terrible calls from CB to get us the strikeout), triple, infield single, fly out, deep fly out. I don’t know that he’ll be here for long.

It was a fun game, and to add to the fun, Matt Davidson, White Sox corner infielder/DH type, pitched the 9th inning for the Sox, and pitched a clean inning, getting Morales to line out (nice catch by the White Sox SS) and 2 ground outs.

Jays of the Day: Gurriel (.125, any guy getting 2 homers gets a JOD), Grichuk (.111, just one homer), Stroman (.103) and Granderson (.102, 1 homer, 1 walk, 1 sac fly).

No Suckage Jays.

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