Tellez and Grichuk homer but Jays lose

Blue Jays 3 Angels 6

We really have to stop the stupid stuff.

First inning, runners on first and second, one out. Slow ground ball to Brandon Drury at second and Brandon flips it to second base, late and we don’t get the out. There was no play at second but there was the easy, obvious, out at first. It is a play a major leaguer should make automatically.

Next batter hits a sac fly and we are down 1-0. If Drury makes the easy play they don’t score. And, on the sac fly, Randal Grichuk throws towards third even though he has no shot at the runner, which allows the runner to move up from second. But that one didn’t cost us a run.

And, in the 4th inning, Marcus pitching to Kole Calhoun. He gets to a 1-2 count, throws a nice pitch, gets a swinging strike. Life is good we think. Nope. Catcher’s interference. Cole gets given first base. We got called for catcher’s interference yesterday too. This stuff just shouldn’t happen.

A single, walk, fly out, RBI walk and 3-run double followed the catcher’s interfernce in the fourth and that was the end of Marcus Stroman’s night. Not the birthday we were hoping Marcus would have.

Being fair to Marcus, the strike zone was terrible tonight. He couldn’t seem to get calls on the corners, which Marcus needs. Marcus has a hard time not showing it when he feels he’s being squeezed. His line was 3.1, 6 hits, 5 runs, 4 earned, 2 walks and 3 strikeouts. Really it should be 3 earned, but they don’t give out mental errors, and Drury’s moment was a mental error.

Daniel Hudson came in for Marcus with 1 out and a runner on second and got out of the inning without the runner scoring.

He gave up an unearned run in his second inning of work. Vlad Guerrero made an error on a ground ball, he tried to short hop it and booted it. He didn’t have to go for the short hop, he had time to back up on it. Next batter lined one to right field and Billy McKinney had bounce right past him. And then bobbled it when he went back to the fence to pick it up. You really have to misplay a ball badly to allow Albert Pujols to score from first, but Billy managed it.

A ground out and a pair of walks later Hudson was out of the game.

Elvis Luciano came in with the bases loaded and 1 out. He got a fly out and a Mike Trout fly out to get out of the inning. He had a nice quick 6th inning too. He gave up a leadoff walk in the 7th but pitched around it, with the help of a nice play by Vlad to end the inning. Elvis went 2.2 giving up just a walk with a strikeout.

Joe Biagini pitched the 8th, giving up a hit and a walk, but getting out of the inning, even after Vlad bobbled an easy double play ball, getting just the out at first.

Offensively, like usual, we didn’t do much early. Our first hit came in the 5th inning, a Rowdy Tellez homer.

We got a couple more runs in the 6th on a Randal Grichuk home run. And we had the tying run at the plate with Vlad (who struck out) and Drury (who also stuck out after a long at bat).

We only had 6 hits on the night. Rowdy and Danny Jansen had 2 each. Vlad was 0 for 4 with 2 strikeouts. He had a deep fly in the 8th inning, with Rowdy on base, but it was caught on the warning track.

We got the tying run to the plate in the 9th. Drury reached on a wild pitch on strike 3 and after Billy McKinney popped out and Teoscar struck out, Danny Jansen had an infield single. But Galvis popped one to right field, and that was the game.

It could have been a lot worse, the Angels stranded 11 runners. It certainly felt worse than 6-3. We play game three against the Angels tomorrow.

No one had the number for the Jay of the Day, but I’m giving it to Elvis for his 2.2 innings of good work.

Suckage: Marcus (-.240 WPA, some of that because of the bad defense behind him), Vlad (-.099, plus the error) and Galvis (-.117, 0 for 5, 2 k).

We had 700 comments in the late night GameThread. I led us to dismal defeat.