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Six Years Ago Today
The Blue Jays were down 2 games to 0 in the best of five series ALDS against the Rangers. It was win or go home. And we got the win.
We won 5-1, but it was way too close until Troy Tulowitzki homered in the sixth inning. After that, we had lots of chances to blow the game open, but we hit into four double plays.
We scored a run in the third. Dioner Navarro doubled, Kevin Pillar singled to give us runners on the corners with no outs, but Ryan Goins hit into a double play. At least we got the run out of it.
And we go one more in the fourth:
Josh Donaldson led off with a double.
Josh moved to third on Jose Bautista’s fly out.
Edwin Encarnacion was intentionally walked.
Chris Colabello took an unintentional walk to load the bases.
And Tulo walked to score Josh.
With the bases still loaded, Navarro hit into a double play.
The big hit came in the sixth, Donaldson and Bautista opened the inning with singles. Edwin walked to load the bases, but Colabello hit into yet another double play, and I thought we were doomed to waste all our chances. From the recap:
Then, 6th inning, we get the bases loaded, Chris Colabello gets to a full count. I was sure he was going to get a hit or a walk. He hit the ball hard, but right at the first baseman, for a 3-2-3 double play. He couldn’t have hit the ball harder. The BABIP God, and he crushes into a double play. Lots of swearing from me.
Thankfully Tulo took a full-count pitch over the left-field wall, making it 5-0, and we could relax a bit.
On the pitching side, we got another excellent playoff start from Marco Estrada, going 6.1 innings, 5 hits allowed (4 singles and a double), 1 earned, 0 walks, and 4 strikeouts with just 1 run.
And the bullpen went 2.2 scoreless. Aaron Loup, Mark Lowe, Aaron Sanchez and Roberto Osuna didn’t allow a base runner.
We would go on to win the next two games and continue to the ALCS.
From the recap:
Jays of the Day: Estrada (.269 WPA), Tulo (.235), and Pillar (.116, plus a couple of nice catches).