Drury and Smoak burn A’s in 11th for 5-4 Jays win

Athletics 4 Blue Jays 5 (11 innings)

I’ll let the FanGraphs game chart to the heavy lifting in telling the story of this one:

I’ll add more detail later, but a tight 1-1 game in which neither team could take advantage of opportunities turned into a wild 11th inning.

Thomas Pannone came back out for a second inning in the 11th, but a combination of him getting squeezed and being ineffective seemed set to doom the Jays. Stephen Piscotty walked leading off, and an out later old friend Kendrys Morales sent him to third with a single. Ramon Laureano executed, sending a fly ball plenty deep to centre to finally push ahead the winning run.

Then it really spiraled, with Josh Phegley smashing a ball off the left field wall that Billy KcKinnet teoscared, allowing Molasses to score from first. A pair of walks loaded the bases and Charlie Montoyo went to Elvis Luciano. A tough spot for him, especially given his control problems, but there weren’t exactly many options left. Sure enough, he added another free pass, this time of the hit by pitch variety, to force in a 4th run.

That seemed insurmountable, especially with Blake Treinen back out for Oakland. But Rowdy Tellez doubled and Alen Hanson followed with a walk, and the tying run was at the plate with nobody out. Billy McKinney couldn’t get the job done, but Brandon Drury continued to absolutely punish Oakland with the game tying home run over the right-centre wall. Somehow, the Jays actually had the advantage (a tie game with two outs in hand).

Freddy Galvis, who pinch hit in the 9th and struck out with a chance to walk the game off, then sliced a double down the right field line to put the winning run in scoring position. Danny Jansen walked, Sogard flew out and that brought Smoak to the plate.. He poked a 1-0 pitch to left field, Galvis scored relatively easily despite not running anywhere near 100%, and the Jays emerged victorious.

The Blue Jays, somehow, remain undefeated on the season against Oaklans, a perfect 6-0. That’s baseball for you.

Super Jay of the Day: Drury (+0.414 WPA)

Jays of the Day: Smoak (+0.168), Thornton (+0.170), Giles (+0.139), Sogard (+0.126), Tepera (+0.108)

Blew Jays: Pannone (-0.291), McKinney (-0.119 plus a misplayed ball in LF that allowed Morales to score), Grichuk (-0.149), Brito (-0.089).

Tomorrow the Jays are off as the Jays return to the West Coast having (checks notes) just been out there two weeks ago. Nice scheduling there, MLB. Anyway, the Jays will apparently be facing Griffin Canning making his debut, whom I really would have liked to have seen the Jays draft in 2017 out of UCLA. He’s be opposed by Clay Buchholz at 10:05 EDT.