Teoscar hits a leadoff homer, Jays beat Rays

Rays 1 Blue Jays 4

Most of the excitement in this game came in the first inning.

In the top of the inning, Trent Thornton gave up a couple of walks and threw a lot of pitches, and it looked like he was going to have a bad day. But he got out of the inning, after 36 pitches.

In our half of the inning, Teoscar Hernandez (leading off of all things) homered. Cavan Biggio singled to continue his on base streak, now at 28 games. Randal Grichuk followed with a triple (a nice bit of hitting, going the other way with the pitch, it would have been nice if he could have carried that into the rest of his at bats today). Rowdy Tellez singled and we were up 3-0 before making our first out. Unfortunately, that’s where the fun ended. Brandon Drury struck out and Justin Smoak hit into a double play, slipping on first, which I’m sure didn’t help his sore knees.

As it turned out, Thornton had a very good game. 5 innings: 1 hit, 4 walks and 8 strikeouts. He threw a lot of pitches in that first inning, and was at 103 after 5 but it is nice to see him have a good outing against a playoff bound team is a good way to end his season. I’m hoping that, next year, he can cut down on the pitch count some, but I hope his late season improvement carries over.

We only scored one more run after that three run first. In the seventh Danny Jansen singled and scored on Richard Urena’s double.

We had our chances to run away with the game. In the fourth Rowdy Tellez led off with a double and moved to third on Drury’s ground out. Smoak was hit in the knee with a pitch (he’ll need a cane soon). Anthony Alford ground into a force out at second (it was a strange little play, ground ball to third, throw to second and Rowdy takes off to home, but instead of trying to finish off the double play, Rays throw home and Rowdy dives back into third. I think Rowdy figured if they went for the double play, with Alford’s speed, they might not get it and he could pick us up a free run). Alford stole second and then Rays walked Danny Jansen to load the bases, but Urena ground out to end things.

We had 8 hits and 5 walks. Tellez had 2 hits. Every other started had 1 except Drury (0 for 3 and a walk) and Alford (0 for 2, and a steal).

Our over-worked bullpen did the job:

• Jason Adam scoreless inning with a walk.
• Sam Gaviglio gave up a solo homer, and a walk getting 2 outs, giving up our only run.
• Buddy Boshers got the last out of Sam’s inning and the first out of the next, both strikeouts.
• Derek Law got the last two outs of the eighth, helped by a very very nice catch from Jonathan Davis in center.
• Ken Giles had a quick ninth to get his 23rd save of the season.

Jays of the Day: Thornton (.230 WPA) and Teoscar (.109, homer and 2 walks).

No Suckage Jays.

Tomorrow is the last game of the season. 3:00 Eastern.

We had 403 comments in the GameThread. Minor Leaguer led us to victory. Good job sir.