Jays use late comeback to beat Orioles

Blue Jays 6 Orioles 4

We are lucky the Orioles can’t play defense.

We were down 4-2 going into the 7th and the Orioles decided to hand us the game.

Rowdy Tellez started the 7th off with an infield single. Aledmys Diaz followed with a single off the glove of O’s third baseman Steve Wilkerson. A strikeout later, Devon Travis hit into an easy double play, but Wilkerson throw low to second and they would only get one out. Next Teoscar Hernandez got to a 3-1, then tapped one to third, but Wilkerson made another bad throw for a 2-run error, and we had a tie game. Lourdes Gurriel singled home 2 more and we were in front.

We had troubles with Orioles starter Dylan Bundy. We didn’t score against him until back-to-back doubles by Diaz and Dwight Smith Jr in the 5th inning.

And we got 1 in the 6th. Billy McKinney singled and moved to second on a sac bunt by Gurriel. I think he was trying for a bunt single, a sac bunt down by 3 is pretty bad baseball, but he came fairly close to beating it out. A wild pitch got Billy to third and he scored on Justin Smoak’s ground out.

We managed 9 hits. No homers tonight. Gurriel (he is starting to hit again) and Diaz had 2 hits each. Everyone else in the starting lineup had a hits, except for Smoak, Diaz and Reese McGuire.

After a good start last time out, Aaron Sanchez didn’t look good tonight. He gave up 4 hits, including a leadoff home run in the first inning, 3 walks, hit a batter and had just 1 strikeout. It added up to 4 runs, but just 2 earned. He never looked right.

In the 4th, we lost a replay challenge: Trey Mancini tried to score an a sac fly. Randal Grichuk made a good throw and McGuire pretty much blocked the plate but Mancini got his hand in before the tag.

On the next play, DJ Stewart singled to right, made a bad throw in towards third, for an error and Sanchez, backing up the play, threw wild home. Two runs would score on the errors.

We also lost a replay challenge in the top of the 4th. Gurriel tried to steal second and was called safe but replay showed he was an easy out.

Our bullpen did great:

• Jake Petricka pitched 2 good innings, allowing just 1 hit and getting 3 strikeouts. Nice to see him have a good outing.
• Jose Fernandez pitched a good inning. He is making a claim for a lefty job in the pen next year.
• Tyler Clippard gave up a single, just to make sure we were paying attention and then got out of his inning.
• Ken Giles pitch up his 23rd straight save of the season, and his 11 save for the Jays. He started the inning with two 3-1 putouts, so he got his exercise in.

Jays of the Day: Hernandez had the number (.272 WPA), but that was all on the error so I’m not giving him one. Gurriel earned a .229 and Diaz a .100. And lets give one each to Giles (.099), Clippard (.095), Fernandez (.086) and Petricka (.055, but he pitched 2 scoreless innings.

Suckage: Sanchez (-.167, plus his error).

We had 334 comments in the GameThread. Alan F. led us to victory. I was in and out of the thread. I’m in Edmonton for a few days, dealing with parents. I should tell you all to appreciate your parents while they around and don’t have dementia. It’s tougher (and sadder) when their brains are failing them.