Bad defense costs Jays, lose to Royals

Blue Jays 5 Royals 7

Bad defense and not the greatest of starts from Anthony Kay (though if plays were made behind him, it would have looked much better) put us in a huge hole. The offense tried to fight back.

Cavan Biggio and Lourdes Gurriel had a rough night with the glove. I’ve thought Cavan had been fine at third, tonight he wasn’t. He had some balls go through him. Two errors, and one more than he should have been able to field. Both errors were on balls hit hard, but then that’s what you get at third base.

And Lourdes didn’t get any official errors, but twice, instead of trying to cut off a ball before it got to the wall, ran parallel to it, picking it up at the wall. He dived to catch another fly, missing it by feet. All of those cost extra bases and runs. He did make a nice sliding catch later in the game.

We were down 7-0 after 4 innings.

Tanner Roark came in for Kay, and for what was left of the fourth inning, seemed to be pitching batting practice, allowing his inherited runner to score, plus two more. After that, he settled down and pitched the best two innings we’ve seen from him this year. Giving the offense a chance to mount a comeback.

Joel Payamps (Dan did say PAY-amps today right? His first game Dan was calling him PIE-amps) pitched two scoreless innings.

We had a chance in the ninth. Down two, Josh Palacios hit a soft fly on the first out of the inning. I hate first pitch-outs when you need a baserunner. You have to take a pitch and see if there might be a walk available. But then Alejandro Kirk (pinch-hitting for Danny Jansen) lined a single over second and Marcus Semien did the same, putting the tying run on base.

Bo Bichette popped out.

Vlad got robbed on a call on a pitch well off the plate, for strike two, and then chased off the plate for strike three. That strike two called was huge, but Vlad shouldn’t have chased.

Before that Vlad had had a great night. He had 3 hits, a double, single, and a 453 foot home run to center. Just crushed.

Lourdes Gurriel and Rowdy Tellez each had 2 hits.

Bo, Randal, Palacios, and Jansen (the birthday boy) all had 0 fors.

Biggio was 0 for 2, before coming out of the game after taking a line drive off his throwing hand. Joe Panik had a 2-run double after taking Cavan’s spot.

Negative is positive in this case.

I don’t know if Kay earned another start. We have two days off in the next few days.

No one hit the number for Jay of the Day, but I’m giving one to Vlad for his 3 for 5.

Suckage: Kay (-.203 WPA, not that it was all hit fault). Bo (-.089) and Randal (-.081). And let’s give them to Biggio and Lourdes too.

Tomorrow Steven Matz (2-0, 1.46) tries to get us back to .500 vs. Mike Minor (1-0, 4.50).

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