Kevin Pillar hits a walk-off homer, Jays win

Cleveland 2 Blue Jays 3 (11 innings)

I didn’t think that game was ever going to end, but Kevin Pillar walks it off with a 1-out homer in the 11th inning.

If Marco Estrada could have had a couple of starts like this last month, he’d be pitching for someone else now.

Marco went 6 innings, allowed 5 hits, 2 earned, 2 walks with 5 strikeouts. He gave up a homer to Yan Gomes, but looked like the Marco of old. He pitched himself into trouble in the 5th, hitting a batter, giving up a walk and an RBI single, but he struck out Edwin Encarnacion to get out of the inning with just 1 run scoring.

Tim Mayza started the 7th, giving up 2 walks while getting 2 outs. Tyler Clippard came in to strikeout Edwin to end another threat.

Ryan Tepera pitched a nice quick 8th, getting 2 strikeouts.

Ken Giles gave up an infield single to Rajai Davis, but even with a Davis steal, Giles made it out of the inning with the game still tied.

Jose Fernandez (2 outs and a single) and Jake Petricka (1 out) shared a scoreless tenth.

Yan Gomes led off the 11th with a single off Petricka. A wild pitch moved Gomes to second. A walk put runners on first and second with no outs. Rajai Davis bunted a 3-1 pitch straight to the pitcher, for a force at third. Jake then got a strikeout of Francisco Lindor. Another wild pitch put runners on 2nd and 3rd, with 2 outs and a full count to Jason Kipnis, who walked on a 55 foot pitch, great job by Reese McGuire to block that.

Bases loaded, Danny Barnes into the game. He got a ground ball to second to end the inning. With Kevin Pillar’s homer in the bottom of the inning, Barnes gets the win for 3 pitches of work.

On offense, we had troubles with Carlos Carrasco. Carlos went 8 innings, allowed just 6 hits, 1 walk and he struck out 14.

The only Jay to have success against him was Rowdy Tellez, who hit 2 more doubles against him. Rowdy had his 5th double in the 5th inning, and scored on a Aledmys Diaz sac fly (after moving up to third on a Jose Ramirez error, his first of 2). And he hit his 6th double in the 8th, driving home Randal Grichuk, who doubled to start the inning.

With Rowdy on second and no outs, we really should have scored the go ahead run, but Kevin Pillar hit a fly out to left field, when we really needed him to go the other way to move up the runner. Tellez did go to third on a wild pitch, with Diaz up, but Aledmys struck out and Richard Urena flied out to end the inning.

We had a shot in the bottom of the 9th. Kevin Pillar got on with 1-out, and stole second, going to third on a bad throw, but Richard Urena struck out after a long at bat to end the inning and we were off to extras.

We had another chance in the 10th. Danny Jansen led off with a single, Jonathan Davis pinch ran, and after a Teoscar Hernandez strike out, Lourdes Gurriel was walked. But Justin Smoak struck out and Randal Grichuk did too and we were on to the 11th.

But Kevin Pillar played hero in the 11th.

We only had 9 hits in 11 innings, Tellez and Pillar were the only Jays to get 2 hits. We also struck out 20 times.

Jays of the Day: Pillar (.521 WPA), Tellez (.182). Barnes (.176, for the out with the bases loaded), Giles (.144) and Tepera (.111).

Suckage: Urena (-.255, on a 1 for 4, 1 strikeout), Diaz (-.197, 0 for 3, 2 k. Add in a missed catch on a popup and he had a bad night), Grichuk (-.136, 1 for 5, 3 strikeouts) and Smoak (-.126, 0 for 4, 4 k).

We had 594 comments in the GameThread. Lalalaprise led us to victory. Great job.