Bats take a night off, Jays lose

Orioles 4 Blue Jays 1

This is one we haven’t seen in a while, the pitching was good, the hitting wasn’t.

Aaron Sanchez had his best start in a long time. He went 5 innings, gave up just 3 hits (one a Chris Davis homer), 4 walks with 5 strikeouts. His ran his pitch count up quick, but he was throwing harder and his curve looked better than it has in a month. Small positive steps.

Speaking of looking better than he has in a while. Sam Gaviglio pitched 3 perfect innings, looking much like he did early in the season. He struck out 4.

Joe Biagini had a bit more trouble in the 9th. He gave up a single, a walk, sac bunt and then a Chris Davis 2 run single. the 1-run game became a 3-run game in a hurry.

We did very little on offence. Just 4 hits. Brandon Drury homered for our lone run.

We did have a couple of chances:

• Danny Jansen tripled to lead off the second inning, but we left him there.
• Teoscar Hernandez doubled to start the third inning (great hustle, turning the single into a double), but again we couldn’t score him.
• And Drury walked to leadoff the fifth inning, but he never made it to second.

Jays of the Day: Gaviglio (.126 WPA) and Drury (.119, 1 for 2, homer, walk).

Suckage: Vlad (-.152, 0 for 3, walk), Sogard (-.149, 0 for4, his average dipped under .300), Tellez (-.111, 0 for 3, k), Smoak (-.094, 0 for 4, 2 k) and Biggio (-.091, 0 for 4, 3 k).

Really the whole offence deserves the award, excepting Drury.

We’ve had 8 games in a row with more than 5 runs scored, so I suppose we can forgive a night off for the bats. It is too bad they couldn’t get some runs for Sanchez.

The plate umpire had a pretty generous strike zone, so that could have had something to with the lack of offense from both teams.

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