The Evil Empire Strikes Back, Jays lose

Yankees 8 Blue Jays 5

That game started poorly. J.A. Happ’s first pitch went for home run and then his fifth pitch went for a home run. That was followed by 2 walks and it looked like a rout, was on. Two strikeouts made it look like he was going to get out of the inning, but then a Brandon Drury fly fell infront of Kevin Pillar (and then bounced over him), scoring both runners. We were lucky to get out of the inning. Curtis Granderson made an amazing catch on a ball hit over him and towards the line, I didn’t thik he had a chance at it. Still 4-0 halfway through the first wasn’t what we were hoping for from Happ.

Yankees loaded the bases, with 1 out, in the second, but Happ pitched out of it without giving up a run. Happ gave up 2 more walks in the third inning and he came out of the game. Jake Pertricka gave up a Brett Gardner triple, to give Happ 2 more earned runs and then threw a wild pitch to get himself an earned run.

Pertricka would go 2.1, allow just the 1 hit (to score the inherited runners), 1 run (unearned), 1 walk, 2 strikeouts. A pretty good outing.

Luis Santos pitched 2 good innings, allowing a hit and a walk, with 2 strikeouts.

Aaron Loup came in with 1 on and no outs in the 8th. He got a popup that landed about 10 feet behind, slightly to the third base side, of the mound. No one could get to it. Not fair to make a good pitch, get weak contact and give up a hit. I’d guess statscast would say there was about a 0% chance of that beeing a hit. The next batter bunted and Luke Maile made a nice play, getting the lead runner at third.

Rhimer Cruz got the last out of the inning. But he had troubles in the 9th, giving up 2 hits and a walk and a run. He came out of the inning with 2 outs with what looked like a knee or leg injury.

John Axford came in and got a strikeout to end things.

The strikezone was an interesting thing all game. The Jays gave up 10 walks, but both teams had issues with the zone.

Offensively, we had 2 home runs off Luis Severino. Kevin Pillar had a 2-run shot in the first inning, his first home run since June 10th, and Randal Grichuck had a solo homer in the fourth. Severino would only go 5 innings, allowing 5 hits, 3 earned, 2 walks with 5 strikeouts throwing 97 pitches.

Both teams had disagreements with plate umpire Lance Barrett. CC Sabathia was thrown out of the game and Gibby was thrown out, both in the second inning, both after inquiring about the strike zone. Lance had a very short fuse. He had an very small strike zone, especially early in the game. Both starters had troubles with him.

We’d score our 4th run in the sixth inning. Smoak doubled, Morales singled and Pillar had a sac fly.

We would end up getting just 4 hits against the Yankees’ bullpen, for a total of 9 hits. Smoak was the only Jay with 2 hits. Solarte (0 for 3, walk). We would score 1 run in the 9th on a Aledmys Diaz homer.

Aroldis Chapman left the game with a leg injury in the 9th. George Steinbrenner fired managers for less than getting a closer hurt in the 9th inning of a 4 run game.

Jays of the Day? Well, we didn’t have one.

Suckager: Happ (-.266 WPA) and Pericka (-.149).

A bit of news: RHP Preston Guilmet has been assigned outright to Buffalo (AAA)..

We had just 258 comments in the GameThread. Alan F. led the way. Good job sir.