Gurriel steals home, Blue Jays beat Red Sox

Blue Jays 7 Red Sox 5

That was a lot more fun. Bats made contact with pitches. Bases were stolen. Runs were scored.

Until today, we’ve had no BABIP luck at all (yeah we have struck a lot, but we’ve had many hard hit balls find gloves), Today we had a lot of BABIP luck. Several softly hit balls that found holes in the infield.

We had 5 runs between the 3rd and 4th inning. In the 3rd:

• With one out, Alex Hanson hits a ground ball that makes it through to left field. Wasn’t really a softly hit ball, but not hit hard either.
• Billy McKinney followed with a ground ball single to right. Very softly hit.
• Freddy Galvis bounced one right at the second baseman, but, fortunately, we had a hit and run on, and the second baseman went to cover the bag. Hanson scored.
• Teoscar Hernandez hit a sac fly and we are up we have 2 runs without anything hit hard.

In the 4th:

• Randal Grichuk singled on a ground ball.
• Danny Jansen singled on a ground ball.
• They both moved up on a passed ball. The play, at third, was close, Randal was called out but it was overturned on appeal.
• Lourdes Gurriel singled, a ‘line drive in front of right fielder Mookie Betts. Not very hard hit.
• Richard Urena put down a sac bunt (on a 0-2 count).
• Hanson struck out.
• Jansen scored on a passed ball.
• Gurriel stole home. Three runs, and not a hard hit ball. The steal of home was a lot of fun to watch. Here:

The Jays tell us that’s the 6th steal of home in Jays history. The last was just over a year ago by Kevin Pillar.

We did have a hard hit ball in the 6th inning. Lourdes lined a double off the Monster in left.

We scored one more in the 7th. Teoscar walked, stole second. Drury walked. And Grichuk singled (a soft fly that fell in front of the center fielder) home Teoscar,

We got one more needed run in the top of the 9th. Billy McKinney was hit by pitch, stole second and scored on a double by Galvis (another hard hit ball).

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We had 10 hits on the day. 2 doubled, 8 singles. But only 9 strikeouts. Also had 3 steals (the steal of home was our first of the season), a successful sac bunt, a successful hit and run, a hit batter and 2 walks.

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Matt Shoemaker’s third start of the season wasn’t as good as the first two. 5.2 innings, 5 hits, 4 runs, 2 earned, 2 walks, 4 strikeouts.

He allowed his first run of the season in the 1st inning, a Mitch Moreland home run. And he gave up an unearned run in the second. On a Xander Bogaerts ground ball to first, Matt took the toss from Hanson playing first, and missed touching the bag. Not good. A single later, Bogaerts scored on a double play ball from Dustin Pedroia.

And 2 more runs (one earned, one not) scored on him in the 6th. Betts homered. And, 2 outs later, Bogaers walked. Tim Mayza came in an got the fly out we needed to end the inning.......

But, Teoscar dropped it. One unearned run scored. Teoscar seemed to be showing he had something in his eye, or something bothering his eye, right after and in his at bat the next inning (where he walked and stole second and scored an important run.

Daniel Hudson came in and got the last out of the 6th and pitched a clean 7th.

Joe Biagini gave up a run and got our heart rates up in the 8th, putting the tying run on second, and working to a full count on Rafael Devers, but got though the inning with us still in the lead.

Ken Giles gave up a leadoff single to Pedroia and a walk to Jackie Bradley to get our interest. Two fly outs to center brought up Mookie Betts. He went full count to Betts...and struck him out. Thank you Ken.

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Jays of the Day: Grichuk (.173 WPA, 2 for 4), Galvis (.134, 2 for 4), Gurriel (.134, 2 for 4, plus the steal of home) and Hudson (.149).

Suckage: Mayza has the number, but that was because of Teoscar’s dropped fly. I’m going to give one to Teoscar. He made up for the error by taking a walk, stealing and scoring but it was such a terrible error. I had been thinking he was looking better in left but we can’t be dropping fly balls.

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I like beating the Red Sox.

Tomorrow is an off-day and then we play the Sox again.

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We had 914 comments in the GameThread and DanYouToHeck lapped us all, leading us to a big win.