Jays win and clinch a playoff spot

Yankees 1 Blue Jays 4

PLAYOFFS!

That was a nice game. A fun one for those of us who miss the idea of a pitcher going late into a game.

Hyun Jin Ryu went 7 innings, allowed 5 hits, 2 walks (1 short of his season high) with 4 strikeouts. He only really had trouble once, in the sixth inning, he allowed back-to-back singles to Luke Voit and Aaron Hicks, to start the inning, then he got Giancarlo Stanton to strikeout, Gleyber Torres to fly out and Gio Urshela to ground out.

Ryu gave up just one extra base hit, a Urshela double. And there were few hard hit outs.

Anthony Bass came in for the eighth and had all sorts of trouble, giving up a hit and 3 walks while getting just 2 outs. And one of the outs was on a very nice play by Vladimir Guerrero, going a long way towards second to get the ball and then making a nice throw get the fielder’s choice at second base. They came close to a double play, Bass (unusual for a Jays’ pitcher this season) got to first base in plenty of time, but Bo Bichette’s throw was just a bit late.

Rafael Dolis came in with the bases loaded and pinch-hitter Gary Sanchez up. Sanchez took a pitch high, but the ump called it a strike, then chased a pitch that bounce, then barely avoided a pitch inside off the plate. He should have let it hit him. Then Sanchez hit one to the wall in center field that Randal Grichuk got to and made a nice catch. Five feet further and the Yankees would have been in front.

Dolis, who hasn’t pitched in a few days, didn’t look all that sharp, but he got Aaron Judge to strikeout (on a full count) to start the ninth.

On offense, it was the big boy’s night. Vladimir Guerrero was 3 for 4, with a home run in the second inning and Alejandro Kirk had a 2-run double in the sixth.

In between we had back-to-back doubles from Cavan Biggio and Bo Bichette to get our other run, in the third inning.

With 10 hits, maybe we should have scored more. Vlad had the 3 hits and Grichuk had 2. Everyone else had a hit excepting Teoscar Hernandez (0 for 3, walk, 2 strikeouts) and Danny Jansen (0 for 3, 2 strikeouts, after the two home run day yesterday). Then DJ LeMahieu struck out. But Voit tapped one up the third base line for an infield single. Thankfully Aaron Hicks chased strike three and the party was on.

Jays of the Day: Ryu (.386 WPA), Dolis (.125), Vlad (.133) and I’m giving one to Kirk (.067) just because it is near the end of the season and I don’t want to have a lot of these sitting around gathering dust all winter.

Suckage: No one had the number, but I’m giving one to Bass (-.077) for making me sweat.

We had 600 comments into the game thread. EMK19 led us to the playoff clinching win!