Lourdes Gurriel hits 2 home runs, oh, and Jays lose

Rays Many Many Blue Jays Few

The good news? Lourdes Gurriel hit two home runs tonight. Counting last night he had homers in three consecutive at bats. He has been so much better than I expected.

And he and his brother Yuli become the first set of brothers to each have two homers in a game on the same day in MLB history.

And Randal Grichuk hit his 24th homer of the season (I wonder what odd you could have gotten if, at the end of April, wanted to bet that Grichuk would hit 25 homers this year?). Randal’s homer went 464 feet.

And that’s about it for good news.

We had a big 7 hits today. Lourdes had 3. Randal and Reese McGuire had 1 each. Tellez and Teoscar Hernandez had singles in the 9th.

And our pitching was awful:

• Sean Reid-Foley had a rough start. He was hurt by a Rowdy Tellez error, but he couldn’t find the strike zone. He struggled through 4 innings, giving up 6 hits, 4 runs, 2 earned, 4 walks and 5 strikeouts. And that will be his last start of the season.
• Jose Fernandez: 1.1 1 hit, 2 earned, 1 walk, 2 strikeouts.
• Mark Leiter Jr.: Looked like he was throwing batting practice. He got 1 out, gave up 2 hits, 2 earned and 2 walks. He was crappy.
• Taylor Guerrieri: Got 2 outs, gave up 2 hit, 3 earned, 2 walks with 2 strikeouts. He had a 1.35 ERA (in 6.2 innings) before tonight. Now he has a 4.91 ERA.
• Danny Barnes: Didn’t give up any runs!!! 1.2 innings, 2 hits, 3 strikeouts.
• Jake Petricka: Also didn’t give up any runs, 1 inning, 2 hits.

No big comeback tonight.

Other stuff:

I’m less and less a fan of McGuire throwing from his knees to second on a steal. He did it three times tonight (that I saw) and twice it almost went into the outfield. I’d rather an accurate throw.

When you are 154 games into the season, the every day discussions from Buck and Pat grate on you. I think today was the 153rd time (this season) I’ve heard about how players should play winter ball.

Jays of the Day: Gurriel (.223 WPA), Grichuk (.110) and Fernandez (.116, surprises me, but his runs that scored came after he left the game).

Suckage: Reid-Foley (-.342) and Leiter (-.217).

We had 222 comments in the GameThread. Delv213 led us to bitter, utter defeat. Good job.