Blue Jays get the second win of the Guerrero era

Athletics 1 Blue Jays 7

For a game that was an easy win, there were more than the normal number of strange plays. Especially around 2nd base.

• In the first inning, with the bases loaded, Teoscar Hernandez bounced into a possible double play. Matt Chapman threw to second baseman Jurickson Profar, andProfar threw wide of first, but the second base umpire ruled that Randal Grichuk’s slide at second was illegal. After our replay challenge, the call was overturned and the two runners who crossed the plate counted. Randal slid straight into second and didn’t slide over the bag, but Profar made his throw from the first base side of the bag.
• In the 5th inning, with A’s on first and second and no one out, Nick Hundley bounced one to short. Eric Sogard fielded, run to touch second and threw to first, but bounced it and Justin Smoak didn’t come up with it. We challenged the slide at season. I felt that Profar slid at Sogard, going well wide of first to do so, definitely trying to take out Sogard. But we didn’t get the call. I thought the umpires got this one wrong.
• In the 7th inning, Hundley hit a ground ball to the first base side of second, Brandon Drury had a play, but 2nd base ump Larry Vanover got in the way, making perfect pick on Drury, turning an out into a hit. I don’t remember ever seeing that before at second base. Drury said he has never run into an umpire before.

Anyway, Aaron Sanchez had a decent start, after leaving his last start with a broken finger nail. He went 5 innings allowed just 2 hits, 1 unearned run (from the Sogard error), 4 walks and 4 strikeouts. If the slide at second had been called an out, he would have been out of the 5th quicker and would have, at least, started the 6th inning.

He had a couple of moments where he lost the strike zone. One in the 5th, after the ‘error’. It looked like he might not get out of the inning. He seemed to start pulling pitches to the glove side of the plate.

Sam Gaviglio had another terrific outing from the pen. He went 3 innings, allowed just 2 hits with 2 strikeouts (and one of those hits was the umpire’s fault. Sam has been so good.

Daniel Hudson pitched the 9th, and gave up a walk but got out of the inning.

On offense, it seemed like everyone contributed. We had 12 hits. Everyone in the lineup had at least one hit expect for Teoscar.

Grichuk and Drury had 3 hits each.

Vladimir Guerrero was 1 for 4 with a walk and 2 strikeouts. His ‘hit’ really should have been ruled an error, but we’ll take it.

We scored in many different ways, but not by home run.

• Our first 2 runs scored on the Profar error (after we won the review).
• Our 3rd run scored on a Sogard squeeze bunt. I’m not a fan of the sac bunt, but squeeze bunts work most of the time. Our 4th run scored soon after on a Grichuk single. Both runs scored in the second inning.
• In the 5th, Vlad walked. Teoscar hit into what should have been a double play but Profar couldn’t make the throw from second. He whiffed on a couple of throws, making me wonder if he hurt his hand on the slide in the Grichuk slide. Drury singled giving us runners on the corners. Rowdy Tellez singled home one and Danny Jansen hit a sac fly.
• In the 6th, Grichuk drove in Sogard from first with a double.

The Jays are 13-14 and have a chance to get to .500 if they can continue their dominance over the A’s tomorrow.

Jays of the Day: Sanchez (.156 WPA) and Grichuk (.132). I’m going to give one to Teoscar who made an amazing catch to save Aaron some runs against in the 5th inning. With 2 on, Matt Chapman lined one hard to left (apparently at 107.1 MPH), and Teoscar made a rather amazing running catch.

No Suckage Jays. Vlad had the low mark at -.062. Most of that came on his first inning strikeout with the bases loaded. He did seem a little anxious at the plate during that at bat.

We had 651 comments in the GameThread. I led us to victory. Yay me.