Jays end losing streak, beat Phillies

Blue Jays 6 Phillies 3

The win brings the Jays magic number down to 5. If the Padres hold on to their win over the Mariners we’ll be down to 4. Rather amazing considering the way we’ve played.

It has a long time since we have seen a good start paired with good hitting. I think the last time was 2015.

Taijuan Walker pitched 6 complete. He threw 104 pitches (being fair there were some cookies in that sixth inning, Lourdes Gurriel made an amazing catch, after a terrible route to a ball, that saved Walker at least a run). He allowed just 4 hits, 1 earned, 2 walks with 8 strikeouts. Just a terrific job.

On the offensive side we got 2 runs in each of the first, sixth and seventh innings:

In the first: Cavan Biggio led off with a walk, Bo Bichette doubled and both scored on a Gurriel single.

In the sixth: Gurriel doubled, Panik walked and Davis drove them both home with a hard hit double.

In the seventh: Biggio hit a one-out triple (right after Biggio was robbed of a walk on a terrible full count call). It was only a few feet short of a home run. Teoscar Hernandez followed with a home run to dead center.

We had 8 hits and 4 walks. 5 of the hits were extra base hits. I’d go back to check but it must be day since we’ve had 5 extra base hits.

Bichette (after a terrible day yesterday), Hernandez and Gurriel had 2 hits each.

Thomas Hatch had a rough seventh inning. Roman Quinn led off with a bunt that Biggio got to coming in from third, but then threw low to Vladimir Guerrero at first, who didn’t scoop the short hop. Called an error on Vlad, would likely have been better a shared error (though with the speed of Quinn, he may have been safe anyway), but they don’t do shared errors.

A single and a walk loaded the bases for Bryce Harper. Hatch went to a full count and then got Harper to chase on a very low pitch. Harper came out of the game after that, with what looked like a lower body injury of some sort.

Next batter, Alec Bohm ground one to second but Panik threw well wide of first. Two runs came home but Vlad got to the ball and made a good throw to second to get Bohm. Bohm likely shouldn’t have gone for second, down three, but he couldn’t have guessed the ball would come back to Vlad or that Vlad would make that throw.

Didi Gregorius lined one right at Biggio. Two runs in the inning but it could have been so much worse.

Shun Yamaguchi started the eighth. He gave up a lead off walk on 5 pitches, filling me with dread. But then he got back-to-back strikeouts. Another walk ended Shun’s day.

Anthony Bass came in, trying for the four out save, and got a weak ground out from pinch-hitter Jay Bruce. In the ninth he got a ground out, strikeout and ground out for his 6th save of the season.

Jays of the Day: Walker (.274 WPA), Davis (.224), Biggio (.099), Bass (.096) and Gurriel (.092).

Suckage: Vlad (-.105, 0 for 4, plus the error).

Tomorrow the Yankees come to Buffalo for a series with the Jays. We should see Matt Shoemaker back for a start during the series.

We had 591 comments in the GameThread. Alan F and EMK19 go into extra....both will start with a comment at second base. If either bunts they will be booed until I’m hoarse.