Great start from Marcus Stroman, Jays beat A’s

Blue Jays 5 Athletics 1

What a terrific start by Marcus Stroman. He had a bit of trouble in the first inning, giving up a single and a Matt Chapman double, which scored the only run against him. And he looked to be tiring in the eighth inning, but got through it with just one single, from Chapman again and one long fly that was just foul.

But, in between the first and eighth innings he gave up just 2 hits and 2 walks. In all: 8 innings plus a batter, 6 hits, 1 earned, 2 walks and 6 strikeouts. Not much was hit hard.

He came out for the ninth, which really surprised me, since he was over 100 pitches and missing his spots in the 8th. Marcus gave up a hard hit double to Kendrys Morales (Brito had a shot at it in center but it was hit so hard, he couldn’t get to a good spot to catch it, and kind of waved at it as it passed him) and came out of the game at 109 pitches.

Montoyo went to Ken Giles, even with us up by 4. I didn’t understand why. He had Ryan Tepera warm in the 8th. I hate warming up a pitcher then going with someone else, unless there is a good reason. Giles has pitched in 3 of the past days now, I’d have rather rested him today and have him fresh for tomorrow. But, it worked out. Ken had a quick 3 up 3 down, with 2 strikeouts.

For a change we did our scoring early. We scored 4 runs in the second inning. And, even nicer, some of the hits came from unusual sources:

• Justin Smoak leadoff double.
• Teoscar Hernandez walk (number 9 on the season for him, he had 41 walks last year, 9 in 20 games so far this year).
• Billy McKinney single loads the bases.
• After a Brandon Drury popup, Socrates Brito singles to bring home one.
• Danny Jansen doubles to bring home 3 more.

And we got a solo homer from Drury in the 4th finished the scoring for the day. Nice swing from Brandon. I hope this is a sign of better days ahead for Brandon.

We only had 7 hits (with a home run and 3 doubles) on the day, but they were grouped nicely. McKinney was the only Jay with 2 hits.

Galvis, Grichuk and Hernandez had 0 fors.

The only other moment of note was a great defensive play by Eric Sogard:

He’s been very good since coming up from Buffalo.

Jays of the Day: Stroman (.179 WPA), Jansen (.170), and Brito (.089).

No one had the Suckage number. Galvis had the low mark at -.067 for his 0 for 4. Much of the number was for his popout in the second inning with runners on the corners. But, we had scored 4 runs already that inning.

A good day for Toronto sports. The Raptors and Leafs won their playoff games and the Jays won.

We had 854 comments in the GameThread. I didn’t expect that many, as it was a late night game for you guys out east. DangYouToHeck led us to victory, great job.