Tellez’ Grand Slam wasn’t enough, Jays lose to Giants

Giants 7 Blue Jays 6

When your pitchers give up 4 home runs, you expect to lose the game.

Starter Trent Thornton only gave up 1 home run, a solo homer to Joe Panik in the 5th inning. Unfortunately he gave up 3 runs in the second inning. Trent started the 2nd inning out well, getting the first two batters to strikeout.

Then Pablo Sandoval singled in front of Randal Grichuk in RF and Brandon Crawford singled in front of Socrates Brito in CF. It is worth noting that the Jays outfielders are playing further back than they did in the past. Both of those singles could have been caught if the outfielders were playing 10 feet further in. Kevin Pillar followed with another single, this time in front of LFer Billy McKinney, but this one wouldn’t have been catchable. That drove in the Giant’s first run. Joe Panik doubled home two more and we were down 3-zip.

In all Trent went 5 innings, allowed 6 hits, 4 earned, no walks with 5 strikeouts. He had good moments, but left too many pitches in the middle of the plate. I don’t buy the ‘he’s tipping his pitches’ stuff today, he just threw too many meatballs.

Thomas Pannone pitched 2.1 innings and gave up two solo homers in that time. Daniel Hudson got the last 2 outs of the 8th inning, but gave up another solo homer.

Tim Mayza became the only Jays’ pitcher who didn’t give up a home run, getting the last two outs of the 9th.

We made another late game push, but came up just short.

We only scored 2 runs in the 7 innings:

• In the second Rowdy Tellez doubled and was driven in by a Brito triple. Brito hit the ball really hard to right center, and he showed off how fast he can run. He hasn’t made contact nearly enough, but when he does he hits the ball hard.
• In the sixth Eric Sogard hit his first home run as a Blue Jay. In fact he his his first MLB home run since June 8th 2017.

We got some runs in the 8th inning: Sogard walked, Richard Urena singled and Randal Grichuk ‘singled’ off the right-center field wall. For whatever reason, Sogard thought the ball might be caught and stayed close to second. At worst he should have moved up halfway to third, where he could have easily scored. Urena almost caught him up and Grichuk wasn’t all that far behind but everyone found a base before the ball came back in.

After Justin Smoak struck out, Rowdy Tellez hit a grand slam, making it a 1-run game.

Unfortunately, we didn’t get that tying run. Billy McKinney singled with 2 outs in the 8th, but pinch hitter Teoscar Hernandez struck out. And we went 1-2-3 in the 9th. Strikeouts for pinch hitter Freddy Galvis (keeping his consecutive game streak going) and Sogard both looking and a weak ground out for Urena ended the game.

We had 9 hits on the day. Two each from Urena, Grichuk and Tellez. We were hitting the ball hard all game but into outs too often.

The Jays put up a very nice video tribute to Pillar and he got a big hand the first time he came to bat. It was nice to see. I would have preferred if he went 0 for 4, but he got that important single in the 3rd inning. He ended up 1 for 4 with a strikeout.

The other interesting moment of the game was in the first inning when Gerardo Parra tried to steal home, but was out easily. Trent played it went, stepping back from the rubber, so he could just throw to Luke Maile without it being a pitch, and Maile moved out to get the ball in a good position, and made a nice tag.

I was hoping for a win to get us to .500, but no such luck. Tomorrow we play the Giants again. It is a 4:00 Eastern start.

Jay of the Day: Tellez (.155 WPA).

Suckage: Thornton (-.180), Drury (-.157, for an 0 for 4) and Galvis (-.089, for his strikeout on the pinch hit moment leading off the bottom of the 9th).

We have 511 comments in the GameThread. DangYouToHeck led us to defeat.