Jays win on walk-off single

Orioles 5 Blue Jays 6

That ninth inning? Wow.

After giving up a go ahead run in the top of the inning, we start off the bottom of the inning with a Joe Panik walk (on a full count). We thought Daniel Vogelbach (sp?) was going to come in to pinch-hit, but no Reese McGuire put down a perfect sac bunt. I’m not a fan of the play but it worked. Then Charlie put in pinch-runner Santiago Espinal. Why after the bunt and not before I truly don’t understand. Tying run on second, Cavan Biggio popped up. The Orioles pitched around Randal Grichuk (smart move) putting the winning run on. Then Travis Shaw walked on a full count pitch. Ball four wasn’t off the plate by much. Next, on a 1-2 pitch Teoscar Hernandez drove a ball through the infield, Espinal scored and Grichuk beat the throw home to win the game.

The Orioles got the go ahead run on a infield single in the top of the inning. I’m not sure if a better shortstop would have been able to make a play on it. With runners on the corner Jose Iglesias ground one softly, just past pitcher Anthony Bass, just to the left of second base, Joe Panik got to the ball and had the runner at first hadn’t been going on the pitch, it would have been an easy out at second. But the throw to first wasn’t close and the runner from third scored.

Before that?

Well, if you were to ignore two home runs from Ryan Mountcastle, it wouldn’t have been a bad day for Tanner Roark (this is where the Titanic joke goes). Roark went 5 innings plus three batters. And the ‘plus three batters was the bat part. He gave up a solo homer to Mountcastle in the second inning. And then, in that sixth inning, Renato Nunez started it with a double, Pedro Severino singled and Mountcaste homered again. A 3-1 lead became 4-3 for the other guys.

Roark pitched in trouble a fair bit, he gave up 8 hits, 2 walks, 5 strikeouts, for those earned runs.

Anthony Kay came in a gave up a triple to the first guy he faced, but got out of it without the run scoring, in part because of a squeeze bunt that missed.

Sean Reid-Foley threw 2 scoreless inning, allowing 1 hit, with 2 strikeouts. Relief seems to agree with him.

Anthony Bass had the ninth inning. Single, sac bunt, ground out (moving the runner to third) and then the infield single. Bass gets the win.

We only had 7 hits on the day, but took 7 walks. Orioles starter Jorge Lopez was pretty good, until we got 2 runs in the fifth.

We scored:

1 in the fourth: Grichuk doubled. After a Shaw walk, Vladimir Gurrero singled Grichuk home.

2 in the fifth: Lourdes Gurriel and Panik started the inning with walks. McGuire bunted them to second and third. Biggio singled home one and Randal hit a sac fly bringing home the other.

1 in the eighth: With two out, Teoscar singled, Vlad walked and Rowdy Tellez singled home Teoscar.

And then the rather amazing bottom of the ninth.

Jays of the Day: Teoscar (.638 WPA), Tellez (.209), Panik (.132 for the 2 walks), Vlad (.119) and Reid-Foley (.119).

Suckage: Bass (-.283), Roark (-.249), Biggio (-.135) and Gurriel (-.113). They have McGuire at -.110 but that’s mostly off the sac bunts and I can’t give him the award for doing what he was told to do. But, he has to stop the throwing from his knees stuff).

We had 612 comments in the GameThread. EMK19 led us to a very exciting victory.