Braves crush Jays

Blue Jays 1 Braves 10

Well, I said I didn’t want any more moral victories. This wasn’t any kind of victory.

Not much of it was good, but let’s talk the good things first:

• Vladimir Guerrero Jr. had 2 doubles. The first one was poor contact, softly hit but rolled down the left field line. The second one was hit much better, again down the left field line. Not crushed, but hit decent. Baby steps. He also had a walk.
• Anthony Kay came into the game with no outs and the bases loaded and got out of the inning without a run scoring. He got a 4-2-3 double play and a strikeout. He also pitched a very good seventh.
• Anthony Alford had a 2-out single with a RISP, picking up an RBI. This is notable because it was the 1 in the 1 for 10 with RISP we were today.
• Vlad made a nice play at first base, picking a ground ball and making a very nice throw to season to get the out.
• Hmmmm that might be about it for good things. I guess our leadoff hitter got on in four innings. And had doubles 3 times.
• Shun Yamaguchi got 2 outs giving up just a walk. He didn’t look great but again small steps.

The bad things? Too many to list, but here is a few:

• Matt Shoemaker didn’t look sharp. He did get through the first 4 innings allowing just 2 runs (both home runs), but he didn’t look great. Still pull him after 4 and it would have looked ok. He had bigger troubles in the fifth. Gave up a leadoff double to Ronald Acuna. He moved to second on a ground out and scored on a fielder’s choice. With the infield in, a ground ball that Bo Bichette had to go to his right to get, then he threw home, way late to get Acuna. If he had taken the out at first, then the next batter, Marcell Ozuna, fly out would have ended the inning. But instead it was the second out and it was followed by a single and a home run and finally Charlie pulled Shoemaker.
• On the bad things....Charlie has got to get a quicker hook. Shoemaker threw 88 pitches, which seems like a lot considering he had 9 days off after his first start. Shoemaker didn’t have anything in that fifth inning, Charlie should have seen that.
• Teoscar Hernandez had a bad day. For a guy who is supposed to be fast, he doesn’t use his speed. He was picked off first base in the first inning. Had a fly ball fall in front of him that I though should be caught. Didn’t run on a ground ball, causing a double play. And, in the eighth, a ball off the wall in right bounced over his head. He could have kept it to a single had he played it well.
• Jacob Waguespack and Wilmer Font looked terrible. Again, a long time since they’ve pitched, but between them they gave up 7 hits, 2 walks getting just 1 out.
• I mentioned the 1 for 10 with RISP above, but it belongs in the bad list.
• Bichette, Biggio, Gruchuk, Jansen and Drury were a collective 0 for 15 with 3 walks.
• Joe Panik had 2 ground balls go through him at third base.
• Our pitchers don’t seem to be interested in holding runners close at first base. Braves had 2 steals where Jansen didn’t have a chance and likely would have had more but once they had a big lead why steal.
• We waited 5 days for baseball and it wasn’t good.

Jays of the Day: Alford had the number (.101 WPA). Let’s give one to Vlad and Kay as well.

Suckage: Shoemaker (-.277), Bichette (-.112 and the bad decision on defense) and Jansen (-.095).

Tomorrow we have Hyun Jin Ryu starting and hoping to figure things out. Sean Newcomb starts for the Braves. He hasn’t been good either, with an 8.22 ERA after two starts.

We had 399 comments in the GameThread. radivel led the way. I’ve been battling a headache all day, so I felt like I was being too grumpy to hang out too much in the thread. Tomorrow will be a better day.