Teoscar homers twice, Jays beat Nationals

Blue Jays 4 Nationals 1

If you are only going to get seven hits in a game, making four of them home runs seems a good plan. Teoscar Hernandez (hitting leadoff for the late scratch Bo Bichette) hit the season pitch of the game for a home run. Rowdy Tellez and Danny Jansen both went deep in the fourth inning. And Teoscar hit his second one in the fifth inning.

It would have been nice if a couple of the home runs could have come with guys on base, but then we didn’t have many on base: Lourdes Gurriel doubled and Derek Fisher “tripled” (it was really an error by right-fielder Adam Eaton, but Eaton played the ball so badly that he didn’t get a glove on it, and scorers won’t award an error if your error is so bad you don’t get your glove on the ball. One of the very stupid things scorers do). Jansen singled in the ninth. And we had 3 walks, Tellez, Joe Panik and Fisher.

On the pitching side, Jays starter Trent Thornton should go out an by some lottery tickets. He gave up 8 hits and 2 walks in 5 inning but only allowed 1 run. It wasn’t like the hits were soft seeing eye things, he was hit pretty hard. He had base runners in every inning. In particular:

• In the second: With one out, Eric Thames walked and Kurt Suzuki singled. Then Victor Robles hit one off the wall in right-center field but Thames decided to tag up. Even if it was going to be caught, it was the wrong play, you go halfway. But he tagged up so he only made it to third on the ball off the wall (this is the Eric Thames I remember playing for the Jays). So they had the bases loaded, with one out. Then Trent struck out Michael A. Taylor, and got Trea Turner to line out to center.
• In the third: Eaton and Starlin Castro started off the inning with back-to-back singles, but Howie Kendrik ground one pretty hard right at Brandon Drury at third, who started a nice double play. A line out to Gurriel in left (he didn’t look confident in the catch) ended that inning.
• In the fourth: Thames singled and scored on Kurt Suzuki’s double (Eric ran hard this time). Another single put runners on the corners with no outs. Taylor lined one hard right at Drury who made a great throw to first for the double play. Very very lucky.

A.J. Cole pitched the fifth. He got a bit of luck too. After a one-out single, Asdrubal Cabrera lined one, again hard, right at Vladimir Guerrero for a double play.

Ryan Borucki pitched an excellent sixth inning, two strikeouts and a fly out. He came back for the seven and got a pop out, but then seemed to tire. He gave up a single and a walk. Thankfully, this time, Charlie noticed his pitcher was tiring and took him out. A first for the season. Ryan got awarded the win. I really think they should get rid of the “starter has to pitch 5 innings to get the win thing” for this season. Ryan gets the win for 4 outs.

Jordan Romano got the last two outs of the inning.

Rafael Dolis pitched the eighth. He got some luck too. After a one-out Thames walk, Suzuki hit a ground ball that Santiago Espinal (just into the game as a defensive replacement (nice move Charlie) turned into a pretty double play.

Anthony Bass pitched a quick ninth making a nice play on a swinging bunt for the last out. He gets his first Blue Jays save.

Jays of the Day: Thornton had the number (.140 WPA), but really doesn’t deserve it. Romano (.117), Hernandez (.126) and Tellez (.096) earned their number. I’d like to give an honorable mention to Drury for his defense.

No suckage Jays. Drury had the low mark (-.071, but he got us two very nice double plays).

If we had some of this luck the last two days, we would be 4-0, but we’ll take what we can get.

Tomorrow Tanner Roark makes his first Jays start. Austin Voth starts for the Nationals.

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