Jays blow early lead, drop rain shortened game

Blue Jays 5 Yankees 7

In the end, it was just another underwhelming loss on another dreary night in the dog days of August.

It started off much better than that, as the Blue Jays jumped all over Lance Lynn out of the chute, making him pay for walks and in the process plating four runs in the 1st inning. Kendrys Morales got the Jays on the board, singling home the first run after walks to Curtis Granderson and Justin Smoak sandwiched around a groundout. With two out, Kevin Pillar singled home Smoak, and Randall Grichuk followed with a walk to load the bases. Aledmys Diaz joined the party, doubling the lead to 4-0 with a single of his own up the middle.

If you turned off the game at that point, it was a good night. Unfortunately, Marcus Stroman wasn’t very sharp, and gave two runs back in the bottom of the inning. He got the first two outs, by then walked Aaron Hicks on a payoff pitch where he quite upset at not getting the call. Whether that got him off his game or not, an ensuing triple and double cashed a pair of runs before he struck out Gleyber Torres.

Stroman proceeded to settle in reasonably well, facing just seven batters over the next two innings with six ground balls. But after retiring the leadoff batter of the 4th, he gave up another extra base hit to Gleybar Torres and walked Greg Bird. Neil Walker followed with a 400 foot bomb to right-centre, and there went the lead. Stroman got the through the inning, the end of his night after 4 innings, 5 (earned) runs on 6 hits, against a pair of walks and strikeouts.

The Jays did immediately strike beck, as Granderson doubled and Devon Travis followed with a single that just got Granderson in ahead of the throw. Despite a Russell Martin single to put runners on the corners with two out, the Jays didn’t get any closer.

Joe Biagini was the first out of the pen, and promptly walked the first batter. With leadoff walks being the cardinal sin and pitchers paying for walks being today’s theme, you knew that was a bad omen. And sure enough, after a single put runners at the corners with one out, the Jays couldn’t turn two on Torres and the go ahead run scored.

Tim Mayza got the last out of the inning, and worked a perfect 7th with two strikeouts, so that was another silver lining. Meanwhile, the Jays went in order in both the 6th and 7th innings.

Luis Santos relieved Mayza for the 7th and promptly gave up a total moonshot to Giancarlo Stanton as meatball pitcher met meatball hitter and the result landed 433 predictable feet away. One strikeout later, the skies opened up and the tarp came out, but to no immediate effect as the game was called about 75 minutes later at 11:15 eastern.

Jays of the Day: None, with Diaz (+0.081) and Morales (+0.80) coming close with the high marks on the day

Suckage: Stroman (-0.310) and Biagini (-0.111). Hat tip to Santos (-0.087) for coming close despite only facing two batters.

Tomorrow hopefully the rain won’t be a factor with Sean Reid-Foley and Luis Severino scheduled to face off in the early 1:05 EDT time slot.