That was much more fun that yesterday’s game. Far fewer mistakes. Really only:
- First inning Teoscar Hernandez, with a runner on first, had a hard hit ball almost to the wall. Instead of throwing to the cut-off man, he threw to second allowing the runner from first to score. He had no shot at getting the runner at second and no chance the runner from first would have scored without a bad play. Teoscar also had a fly ball that I thought he should have caught, go over his glove.
Beyond that, it was the Rays who had the two official errors.
Tanner Roark did not have a good start. 4 innings, 4 hits, 3 runs, 4 walks and 4 strikeouts. He did get better after the first 2 innings, giving up just a hit and a walk over the 2 innings.
Anthony Kay pitched a quick 1, 2, 3 fifth inning. The sixth didn’t go as well. Two walks, a double and a sac fly and he was out of the game with the bases loaded, one out and one in.
We weren’t thrilled to see Wilmer Font come in but he got pinch-hitter Jose Martinez to hit into a double play to end what could have been a bad inning.
Ryan Borucki had a scoreless seventh, giving up just a 2-out walk.
Anthony Bass, seemingly demoted from his closer job, pitched a quick eighth on 11 pitches.
A.J. Cole finished up.
It was the home run show again tonight. We hit 6 tonight. Someone on the broadcast mentioned the Jays used the same lineup up as yesterday and that every player in the lineup had homered at least once in the two games, other than Lourdes.
We scored:
- 2 in the second: Vladimir Guerrero singled (hard hit ball off the wall, but it bounce right to the center fielder and Vlad had to back track to first base, with a slip in there to make it a close play). An out later, Rowdy Tellez homered.
- 1 in the fourth: Cavan Biggio homered.
- 5 in the sixth: Randal Grichuk led off with a home run (his first, he hit a hard fly out in the at bat before). Tellez singled. Aaron Loup came in for the Rays. He hit Cavan with a pitch and then Bo Bichette crushed a 3-run home run. I’ve decided I’m a fan of the 3-batter run, no way would Loup have faced Bo if not for that rule. An out later and Loup still in the game (I’m not sure what was going through Kevin Cash’s mind) Teoscar Hernandez took Loup deep.
- 4 in the eighth: Danny Jansen walked and Cavan was hit by pitch for the second time tonight. Bo singled. A wild pitch scored one. Teoscar hit a 3-run homer, his second home run of the night. After Vlad walked, the Rays brought in position player Mike Brosseau to pitch and he froze Grichuk with a ‘fastball’ on the inside corner for a strikeout.
We had 10 hits and 5 walks on the day.
Teoscar had 3 hits, with 2 homers and 4 RBI.
Bo and Rowdy had 2 hits each.
The only Jay not to reach base was Lourdes.
Jays of the Day: Bo (.194 WPA), Rowdy (.185), Cavan (.181), Font (.099, a really important, at the time, double play), Teoscar (.087) and Randal (.087).
Suckage: Kay (-.122) and Lourdes (-.100, 0 for 5).
We had 354 comments in the GameThread. I led us to victory.