Jays beat Mets

Met 2 Blue Jays 3

That was a totally different game than yesterday’s.

I think we are going to like Robbie Ray. He was throwing 96-97 and hitting the edges of the zone. I think we’ll get days when he walks too many, but if he can give us some starts like this we will be happy. He pitched 5 innings, allowed 4 hits, 1 earned, 2 walks with 5 strikeouts. He was helped out by a terrific play by Lourdes, coming in and made a nice sliding catch, that saved a run.

Alejandro Kirk had a good first game in the MLB. He had a walk and a single. Also a long foul ball. He looked fine behind the plate.

Our bullpen was pretty amazing too:

• Julian Merryweather pitched 2 innings, allowed 3 hits, 1 earned with a strikeouts. He would have gotten out of the inning without a run scoring but Joe Panik dropped the ball on a transfer on an easy double play. They got one out, so it isn’t called an error because some baseball rules are stupid. But then he was helped out by a terrific play by Vladimir Guerrero, fielding a ball behind first and throwing to get the runner at second. I’ll admit, when he threw it I thought it was a big mistake, but he threw a strike.
• Anthony Bass pitched and excellent eighth, getting 2 strikeouts.
• Rafael Dolis got helped by a nice double play after a lead off walk. Then he got a strikeout, but Kirk wasn’t able to block the ball and the runner was safe at first. But Dolis picked him off first (after review). Have you ever seen a pick-off to end a game before. I was complaining that Vlad always wants a review, but he was right on that one.

Offensively, we should have had more than 3 runs. 10 hits, and 3 for 13 with RISP, but all three hits were singles.

We got robbed on an iffy interpretation of park rules: a ball went up to the outfield fence and the umpires ruled that it was trapped under the padding, even though the outfield just picked up the ball with no trouble. It seemed like making a ruling where one wasn’t needed. Sometimes we need to use common sense instead of worrying about a rule.

Villar stole two bases today. Of course he also watched a strike three right down the middle of the plate when we really needed contact.

Every Jay in the starting lineup had a hit, excepting Lourdes, who made that terrific play in left so we’ll forgive.

Jays of the Day: Dolis (.174 WPA), Bob Rae (.165), Bass (.126) and Shaw (.115). I’m giving honorable mention to Vlad for the defensive play getting the out at second and getting the tag down on the pick-off just in time.

No Suckage Jays. Lourdes (-.089) and Bo (-.087) came close, but Lourdes made that great catch and Bo was in his first game back.

I missed some of the game, we had a nice dinner for my son’s birthday. And I may have had a fair bit of wine, so forgive the mistakes.

We had 635 comments in the GameThread. EMK19 led us to victory.