Jays lose on a walk-off home run

Blue Jays 2 Royals 3

It was a ‘use the whole staff’ day.

Tommy Milone started and was excellent through 2 innings. He gave up a lead-off double in the first, and I was worried that he would be hit hard, but he got out of the inning with three strikeouts, with an infield single in between. The infield single, in my mind, should have been an error, ground ball that Bo Bichette made a nice stop on but then dropped it trying to get it out of his glove. With Carlos Santana running, he had tons of time. The second inning was 3 up, 3 down.

The third inning started with a triple. The Jays played the infield in, which I hate early in the game. Allow a run to score. It is early. But no. Anyway, one ground out, and the runner doesn’t score. Next ground out, hit right at Rowdy Tellez at first. Rowdy throws home but wide of first, run scores, and the runner goes to second. If they played back, the runner would have scored, but we’d have two outs and no one on—instead, one out, runner on second.

Milone comes out of the game. I don’t know. I’d have kept him in, but maybe he was tiring. I can’t really say, but he got two ground ball in a row.

Anthony Castro comes in to face Salvador Perez and gets a popout. Without the infield earlier, that’s the inning. But as is, Carlos Santana doubles, and the run scores.

Castro starts the fourth. Gets two ground outs on either side of a single.

Ryan Borucki comes in, gives up a single, but gets out of the inning. Borucki gets the first out of the fifth, strikes out Andrew Benintendi. And comes out of the game.

Nine pitches in, I’d have left him in, but then Perez hits lefties much better than right-handers, and taking Ryan out should leave him available for tomorrow.

Trent Thornton in and gets out of the fifth. And pitches a nice sixth. Thornton was excellent.

Joel Payamps came in for the bottom of the seventh. He got two outs, but then Perez hit a pitch a country mile for a walk-off win.

Offensively we didn’t do much. We scored one:

• In the second: Two outs, Josh Palacios singles, and Alejandro Kirk doubles him home. Good baserunning by Palacios and good swing from Kirk.
• In the fourth: Vladimir Guerrero led off with a walk. He surprised me by going first to third on a Rowdy Tellez single. And then scored on a medium fly by Lourdes Gurriel. Again I thought he was wrong to try, but Jorge Soler’s throw was well up the third baseline.

Beyond that, we didn’t do much. We did have a couple of chances:

• Joe Panik led off the fifth with a walk. Jonathan Davis tried to bunt and failed. I hate two-strike bunts. Hate them. But then Davis should be able to bunt better.
• Rowdy Tellez had a one-out single in the sixth. Cavan Biggio pinch ran. He tried to move up to second on a ball that got away from Royals catcher Cam Gallagher and beat the throw but over slid the base. End of threat.
• In the seventh, Kirk reached on an error with one out. But didn’t get any further than first.

We managed 5 hits. Kirks double was the only extra-base hit. Tellez was the only Jay with 2 hits. Panik, Kirk, and Palacios had the others.

Late add:

There are few things I think should get players glued to the bench, but deciding that it is your job to set strategy would be one of those. I think Billy Martin would have beaten Jonathan with a bat.

Jays of the Day: Thornton (.163 WPA), Tellez (.159), Kirk (.142), and Borucki (.093). I feel like Vlad deserves an HM for his hustle.

Suckage: Payamps (-.354), Davis (-.150), and Semien (-.094, 0 for 3, but he hit one to the track).

Tomorrow we try to tie the series. Bob Rae pitches for us, Brady Singer for the Royals. 2:00 Eastern start.

We had 719 comments in the GameThread. Paigne lapped the field to take the win.