Jays win Taijuan Walker’s team debut

Orioles 0 Blue Jays 5

The Orioles went out of their way to make us feel better about our team’s defense tonight. They had 2 official errors, a few non-error errors and a wild pitch on a strikeout to allow Randal Grichuk to reach.

Taijuan Walker looked really good in his first start for the Jays. He walked more batters than I expected, 3 in 6 innings, but didn’t give up a run. He allowed 4 hits (3 singles and a double) and had 4 strikeouts. He didn’t give up any hard contact. He came out after 6 innings and 92 pitches, to much complaining on Twitter, but, with ten days since his last start and a 5 run lead, why push it.

Ryan Borucki, A.J. Ccle and Wilmer Font each pitched a scoreless inning, allowing 1 base runner between them.

Our first shutout of the season, 31 games in.

On offense we did enough. 9 hits, all singles except for a Joe Panik double. Biggio, Teoscar, and Vlad had 2 hits each. Biggio also reached on a hit by pitch (though personally, I don’t believe a ball brushing against part of the uniform should count as a hit batter. You should have to have a bruise to get first base).

We scored:

2 in the first: With two outs, Rowdy Tellez walked (his first of two walks today), Teoscar Hernandez singled and both he and Rowdy moved up a base when Anthony Santander kicked the ball. Both scored on a Vladimir Guerrero rocket off the left field wall. 116 MPH off the bat.

3 in the fourth: Vlad hit his second single of the game and Travis Shaw hit a hard ground ball that went right through second baseman Hanser Alberto, I thought it could have been an error. Derek Fisher hit a double play ball, but Alberto dropped the throw to second. The umpires rules he dropped it on the transfer, but I thought he never really made the catch. Joe Panik doubled to the right field wall to score one. Most of us thought that Fisher should have been again to score from first on the play, but he didn’t need to as Cavan Biggio singled him and Panik home.

Jays of the Day: Walker (.265 WPA) and Vlad (.164). The Orioles defense also deserves a JoD.

No suckage Jays.

29 of us compiled 589 comments today. DangYouToHeck led us to a drama free win.