Jays lose game, and yet another starting pitcher

Blue Jays 4 Rays 5

I overuse the line ‘if you use a lot of pitchers, sooner or later you will find the one that doesn’t have it that day’.

Of course if your starter comes out after the first inning, you are going to use a lot of pitchers. Thornton came out after a scoreless first, with ‘elbow inflammation’. That they have video of him flexing that elbow before the game, I’m pissed that he pitched. Someone should have the job of watching the starting pitcher warm up and should have noticed he wasn’t right. .

Anthony Kay pitched the next 3 innings and looked terrific. He looked to be labouring some, starting off the fifth inning, giving up a single and a walk and that was it for him. 3 innings plus two batters, 1 hit, 2 walks, 2 k. He threw 47 pitches. If he can do 50ish pitches, he should get the start in 5 days.

Ryan Borucki came in, with 2 on and no outs, and didn’t have anything. He got a line our, then gave up a single, sac fly and single to score the 2 runs that count against Kay, plus 1 that counts against him.

Jacob Waguespack got out of the inning. He pitched a nice sixth, but had troubles in the seventh. Single, flyout, RBI single and walk and he was out after 1.2 with 3 hits, a walk and a strikeout.

Sam Gaviglio followed, with 2 on and 1 out, and gave up a walk to load the bases, and a sac fly to bring Waguespack up to 2 earned. A fly out ended the inning, but 7 innings in and we were on our fifth pitcher. This season is a pain.

A.J. Cole came in for the eighth. He gave up a 1-out double, but got out of it.

On offense, we should have scored more than we did. We had just 6 hits and 5 walks (3 walks by Teoscar Hernandez, proving all things are possible).

We scored:

• 1 in the second: Teoscar hit a home run a mile.
• 1 in the fourth: Vladimir Guerrero Jr. tripled (I’m sure people all over Florida felt the earth move) and scored on a Travis Shaw single.
• 2 in the seventh: Teoscar walked and Lourdes Gurriel homered, killing a cardboard woman, who had cardboard children at home.

We were 1 for 7 with RISP.

There were just way too many bad at bats today.

Jays of the Day go to Hernandez (.248 WPA) and Gurriel (.108).

Suckage: Borucki (-.260), Espinal (-.152 0 for 4),Rowdy (-.152, including one of the worst pinch-hit at bats that you are ever going to see) and Grichuk (-.125, 1 for 5).

Among the things that drive me nuts is a batter looks all locked in and great one day and the next he has no idea.

We had 416 comments int he GameThread. I led us to crushing defeat.