Jays lose last game of season

Orioles 6 Blue Jays 4

Bring on the Rays.

Jonathan Davis, playing right field, made what I’m sure was the best catch of the season for any Blue Jays player, and might have been the best catch of the season in the majors. He ran a long way to the right field corner, a big jump to grab the ball, that was well over the fence and managed to hold on to it while hitting the wall.

Davis almost had a another great play. In the fifth inning, runner on first, line single into short left. Davis threw to second but Jonathan Villar couldn’t make the catch. The sun was low behind Davis.

And Randal Grichuk had a poor day in center field. Why we can’t put Davis in center (when he is playing) makes no sense at all. Randal had an official error, had a catchable ball just go beyond his glove (a decent center would have had it easy) and running back for a fly ball off the wall he was a long way off line (though the ball bounced off the wall almost right to him, so it worked out).

Jonathan Villar had a couple of nice plays too. A diving catch of a line drive with the infield in in the fifth and diving catch of a ground ball, which got caught in his glove when he tried to throw to second, so he spun around and threw to first. Very heads up, he saw he didn’t have the play at second, without getting the ball out of the glove smoothly, and realized he still had a shot at first.

Offensively, we didn’t do a lot:

• 1 in the second: Lourdes Gurriel led off with a double, Travis Shaw singled and Lourdes scored on a Jonathan Davis sac fly.
• 3 in the third: With two outs, Vlad homer, Grichuk singled and Lourdes homered.
• 1 in the eighth: Gurriel had his second double of the day (he needed a triple for the cycle) and scored on a ground ball to second when the first baseball couldn’t catch the throw. It wasn’t a tough catch.

Lourdes had a very good day, 4 for 4, single, 2 doubles and a home run. But the rest of the lineup only had 3 hits. He got his batting average up to .308

Bo Bichette came out of the game in the seventh for pinch-hitter Joe Panik. We didn’t understand the move at the time, but Bo had a .301 Batting Average and an out would have brought him to .298

Tanner Roark was Tanner Roark. Hit hard. 4 innings, 5 hits, 4 runs, 2 earned, 2 walks and 2 strikeouts. He wasn’t helped by the defense (other than that amazing catch by Davis), but he wasn’t good. He threw 91 pitches in those 4 innings.

Shun Yamaguchi wasn’t any better. 2 innings, 3 hits, 3 earned, 1 walk. He did not help his case for making the playoff roster.

Patrick Murphy was very good for 2 innings. 1 hit, 1 walk and 1 strikeout. I am liking him as a reliever. Power arm, 97 on the fastball and that lovely curve.

A.J. Cole pitched the ninth. He likely wanted to get some work. He had a quick 3-up, 3-down inning, with 2 strikeouts.

Bring on the Rays.

Jay of the Day: Gurriel (.323).

Suckage: Yamaguchi (-.268), Roark (.189, not all of that his fault). I’m giving one to Grichuk for his defense. Davis had a -.097, but that catch was worth a lot.

We had 657 comments in our GameThread. I led us to defeat. Such is life.

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