Jays lost on walk-off homer

Blue Jays 3 Braves 4

So I hate saving the ‘closer’ for a save situation that might not come. Bass did pitch last night, so saving him is understandable I guess. But I’d like to think there was a better choice than Font

Font hasn’t look good. He comes into the bottom of the ninth, gives up a hard hit ball to left, that Lourdes Gurriel made a very nice play on, and a home run to Nick Markakis that ended the game. It wasn’t a wall scrapper.

The good stuff:

• Nate Pearson wasn’t great, but he wasn’t bad. 5 innings, 2 hits, 3 walks 5 strikeouts. One of the ‘hits’ was a Marcell Ozuna line drive hit right at Lourdes, but Lourdes lost it in the lights, for a single. Unfortunately a wild pitch got him to second, a ground ball to third, and a sac fly scored him. Not fair to blame Lourdes, but then it wasn’t Nate’s fault either. The other two runs came in the first, a 1-out, 4-pitch walk and a Freddie Freeman home run. I didn’t think it would go out, it went a long ways up. Beyond that, he had two 3-up, 3-down innings and the other he gave up a walk.
• Rafael Dolis, A.J. Cole and Jordan Romano each pitched an excellent inning. I thought that maybe Cole could have gone 2 innings. Romano pitched yesterday, so I wouldn’t have pushed him.
• Bo Bichette hit a home runs and seemed to be a bit more selective at the plate.
• Lourdes Gurriel Jr. was 2 for 4 with a double.
• Rowdy Tellez hit a double, and scored, from second, on a Teoscar Hernandez single (his slide into the plate was not a thing of beauty). Rowdy hit a very hard line drive in the ninth, but at left fielder Adam Duvall. He was one of the few to hit the ball hard tonight. He also made a couple of nice plays in the field.

The not so good:

• There was the Wasguespack saga, but I’ll just direct you to Minor Leaguer’s post. I’m kind of ok with the umps not knowing the rule, it isn’t something that would come up often, or one would hope it wouldn’t come up often.
• The offense was poor again. 5 hits. Touki Toussaint was good, but not as good as we made him. Very few hard hit balls. Cavan Biggio (2 k), Vladimir Guerrero (1 k), Randal Grichuk (2 k), Travis Shaw (1 k), Joe Panik (1 k) and Reese McGuire (2 k) all had 0 fors. I don’t understand why Panik was in the game at the cost of Teoscar. If you want Panik in there, Biggio isn’t hitting anyway, sit him. We have so few who are hitting at all, why sit one of them. Cavan looks lost out there. Vlad, who was looking a little better the past couple of days, didn’t look good at the plate today.

It is tough to win when you only score 3 runs. It puts a fair bit of pressure on your pitchers.

Jays of the Day: Teocar (.173 for the pinch hit), Romano (.111) and Cole (.091).

Suckage: Font (-.355), Vlad (-.161), Randal (-.108), Reese (-.092). Pearson had the number too (-.097) but I’m not giving him the honor in his second MLB start, especially when his score would have been better without the ball lost in the lights.

Tomorrow the Jays are in Boston.

I’m trying to give the benefit of the doubt, but Charlie is wearing on me. The bullpen stuff? Well, it is a strange year and the relievers aren’t stretched out. Sitting Teoscar? That’s just stupid. Not having Wags name on the lineup card? The buck has to stop at his desk. Not knowing the rule was used wrong? Well it was weird, but I would have argued it more.

We had 342 comments in the GameThread. DangYouToHeck led us to dismal defeat again.