A Comeback win for the Blue Jays

Mets 6 Blue Jays 8

It didn’t look good early. It was 6-1 Mets after the top of the 7th.

Through 6 innings, we had just 1 run. And we rarely had baserunners. It really looked like, after falling behind early, we were just trying to get through the game as quick as well could.

But then we scored 5 in the 7th, to tie the game and 2 more in the 8th to take the lead.

It didn’t look like our night. Marco Estrada started and got the leadoff batter, but then a walk to Jose Bautista and a home run by Asdrubal Cabrera and a couple of strikes to Michael Conforto was as far as he went. He came out of the game clearly in pain. The Jays tell us he has hip soreness. It looked like significant hip soreness. They say x-rays here negative. I have no idea if he’ll be back for his next start or if he will be going on the DL.

So it was a bullpen day.

• Jake Petricka pitched 2.2, allowed 2 hits, 2 earned, 1 walk with 1 strikeout. He gave up a home run to Mets’ catcher Davin Mesoraco.
• Next came Preston Guilmet. He went 1.1m allowed 2 hits, 1 walk, 1 strikeouts, with 1 earned off a Wilmer Flores homers.
• Tim Mayza followed, he went 1.1, allowed 1 hit, 1 walk with 1 k and didn’t give up a run.
• Joe Biagini got 2 outs, giving up 2 walks, an earned run with a strikeout.
• Aaron Loup got 2 outs, giving up a hit (scoring Joe’s run).
• John Axford went 1.2. He had a very nice 8th inning but had some troubles in the 9th, giving up a hit and a walk which got him removed from the game. He did get 3 strikeouts.
• Tyler Clippard got the last out, a ground out, for his 6th save.

I’m afraid it is likely one or more of those relievers will be sent out to allow us to bring in a fresh arm or two for tomorrow.

As mentioned, we didn’t do much offensively early. The most notable thing about the first few innings was bad baseball. Teoscar Hernandez was thrown out at second trying to stretch a single (really, he should have been running hard from the start, and he would have been easy safe). Just stupid to get thrown out at second down by 5. And soon bad defense, players not going where they should on defense. Teoscar threw a ball into second but no one was there to take the throw.

But then we started scoring. We got:

• 1 in the 5th: Russell Martin led off with a walk, two outs later Devon Travis was hit by pitch and Curtis Granderson doubled Martin home.
• 5 in the 7th: Randal Grichuk hit a one out single to right and the ball went off Jose Bautista’s glove, Randal got to third. Then, with 2 outs, Travis walked, Granderson doubled, Hernandez walked (good at bat) and the birthday boy, Yangervis Solarte homered to tie the game.
• 2 more in the 8th: Grichuk was hit by pitch and Lourdes Gurriel homered.

We had 7 hits and 5 walks. Not bad considering we didn’t get our first hit until the 4th inning (and that was the play that Teoscar was tagged out at second). Granderson was the only Jay with 2 hits, but everyone in the lineup got on base except for Kevin Pillar (0 for 4).

Of course the big hits were the homers from Solarte and Gurriel. Those 2 hits scored 5 of the 8 runs, Gurriel looked good at short too.

I got what I wanted. Jose Bautista had a good day 1 for 2 with 3 walks (including a hard hit single in the bottom of the ninth, to make us sweat a bit). He had the error in the outfield, but he also made a very nice catch in right. All in all a good day for him and yet we still won.

I enjoyed the video tribute for Jose. It was very nice. And the fans gave him a big hand.

Jays of the Day: Gurriel (.337 WPA), Solarte (.326), Axford (.114) and let’s give one to Granderson (.086).

Suckage: Estrada had the number (-.164) but I can’t give him one since he was hurt. Let’s give one to Pillar (-.098).

We had 408 comments in the thread. Not bad since a number of folks left early. I’m not feeling sorry for them. Amazingly enough, I can lead the way in a win. Yay me.