Another Jays game, another Jays loss

Blue Jays 2 Cleveland 7

There were some good things that happened today:

• We had some better at bats. And had some hard hit balls, 4 doubles and a home run. And 10 total hits.
• Thomas Pannone had a couple of good innings before running into trouble in the third.
• Elvis Luciano showed why the scouts liked him. He threw some really good pitches (and a few not so good ones).
• Freddy Galvis hit another home run.
• Charlie let Sam Gaviglio pitch more than an inning (though just 1.2).

Beyond that?

Well, it might have been a different game with a consistent strike zone. You would see strikes above and below the zone and then you’d get balls called on pitches clearly in the zone. A good example was Teoscar Hernandez’ at bat in the 9th. Up 3-0, next pitch was clearly ball four, but the ump called it a strike. Then Teoscar watched two pitches down the middle.

We need robot umps.

But....we struck out way too much again. Carlos Carrasco had 12 strikeouts in 5 innings. Some might have been due to the shadows between the plate and the mound in the early innings. And some due to the rather inconsistent strikezone. But most were the same thing we’ve seen game in and game out, chasing breaking balls and/or watching strike three pass right over the plate. We had 14 strikeouts in all.

And there was some bad baseball.

Danny Jansen had a tough day behind the plate. There were a couple of steal, a passed ball, a wild pitch (not that he had a chance at it) and a error on a throw to third base that cost us a run. But he did hit a double and had another line drive that was caught.

Teoscar missed a ball hit to the wall (it would have been a tough catch, but it would have helped things. And, in the fifth inning, with runners on second and third and the infield in Galvis made a nice diving stop of a grounder, but then threw home, from his knees, late and short, everyone was safe.

On the offensive side, we did get a few baserunners (and a hit in the first inning, thank you Smoak). We had 10 hits.

Everyone in the starting lineup had a hit other than Brandon Drury (who has been totally lost at the plate, 0 for 5, 3 k) and Lourdes Gurriel Jr (0 for 3 with a hit by pitch).

Hernandez, Galvis and Billy McKinney were the only one with 2 hits. One of Teoscar’s was an infield single that he hustled down the line to beat out.

Pitching? Thomas had 2 good inning, then the third went badly. He could have used a call from the plate umpire a couple of times, but the inning went double, strikeout, single, walk, strikeout, walk (bringing in a run) and a single (bringing in 2 more before Elvis came in to finish out the inning.

Elvis had a quick, 3 up 3 down 4th inning then had problems of his own in the 5th. 2 singles and a walk loaded the bases and a wild pitch scored 1 before Gaviglio came in. He allowed 1 more to score on the ground ball to Galvis mentioned above.

Galviglio gave up a run in the 6th on a Jose Ramirez double, then Jansen made a bad throw to third on a steal and Ramirez score. He was helped out of the inning by a video replay on a play I was sure was too close to be overturned but it was. I’ll never get a replay call right.

Tim Mayza and Javy Guerra each threw a scoreless inning.

No Jays of the Day.

Suckage: Pannone (-.221 WPA) and Drury (-.083).

Tomorrow is a 1:00 start from Cleveland. Maybe we can get some hits again, plus a good pitching performance from Stroman.

We had 749 comments in the GameThread. TimmyMax led us to crushing defeat.