A late inning collapse, Jays lose ugly

Blue Jays 5 White Sox 9

Bullpen Day 2 was going well, until the 7th inning:

Tyler Clippard ran into troubles in the 7th, giving up a 1-out homer, and then a pair of two out hits, giving up 2 runs in the inning, making it a closer game, but got a strikeout to get out of it. And then didn’t know the inning was over.

And then it all went to hell in the 8th:

Jaime Garcia came in, he was looking good since going to the bullpen. Tonight, not so much. He gave up a walk. Then he got a nice grounder to his feet, easy double play ball, but he threw high to second. Solarte did a nice job to come down on the bag to get the out but we needed the double play. Jose Abreu followed with a double and Garcia was out of the game with the tying run at second and one out.

In comes Ryan Tepera and well, it really went downhill quick. He gave up a single, to make it a 1-run game. Hit a batter. Gave up another single, 2 runs scored and we were behind. Another hit batter loaded the bases. And a triple unloaded them. Suddenly we are down by 3. Like always, you use a bunch of pitches, you’ll find ones that just don’t have it.

Oliver Drake came in a got us out of the inning, but by then it was too late.

The big news, Lourdes Gurriel had a multi hit game again, giving him 10 in a row and a new Blue Jays record. I really didn’t think he’d hit this well this soon. He is nicely locked in and making solid contact. And, yes, of course, he’s had some luck.

Bullpen Day 2 started out much better than Bullpen Day 1.

• John Axford started and was terrific. 3 innings, 3 strikeouts, just 1 hit (and that could have been called an error). I honestly felt he could have gone out for a 4th inning. I’m really glad for him. Maybe we should stretch him out to start? Yeah I guess not.
• Jake Petricka gave up a home run to the second batter he faced and then gave up a couple of singles, but got out of it on a nice double play, Lourdes taking the ball near second, running to the bag and making a strong throw. Lourdes had a nice game on defense. Jake’s second inning went much better, 3 up 3 down.
• Aaron Loup started the 6th inning, he gave up a leadoff single, and then got 2 outs. Tyler Clippard finished off the inning for him. That’s where the good stuff ended.

The offense did ok. We scored:

• 1 in the first: Singles from Curtis Granderson (who is starting to hit again), Gurriel and Morales.
• 2 in the second: Russell Martin walked, an out later Brandon Drury singled, Granderson singled and Gurriel singled, driving home 2.
• 1 in the third: Martin homered. He seems to be hitting better of late.
• 1 in the fifth: Justin Smoak started us off with a double, a Morales ground out moved him to 3rd and Yangervis Solarte singled Smoak home.

We had 12 hits, so we should have scored more but 5 should be enough. We had 2 hits each from Granderson, Gurriel. Morales and Martin. The only Jay not to hit was Teoscar Hernandez, who is in a slump. Over his last 7 games he has a .091 batting average.

As well as good defense by Gurriel, Drury looked very good at third base. Nice to see a good glove at third.

Jays of the Day: Axford (.138), Gurriel (.145) and Martin (.098, and he did a good job blocking pitches in the dirt).

Suckage: Tepera (-.649) and Garcia (-.176).

We had 587 comments in the GameThread. I led us to crushing defeat.