Jays lose to Nationals

Nationals 8 Blue Jays 1

This game was at the exact opposite end of the fun scale from yesterday’s game.

Steven Matz was very unlucky tonight.

He gave up 8 hits, all singles but for one home run. And the home run came after a terrible call a full-count pitch giving Victor Robles a walk when he really struck out and a popup that fell between the outfielder and the infielders. Randal Grichuk seemed to get a very slow start on the ball. Then Josh Harrison hit a home run, to give Matz three earned runs in the fourth. That was after the Nationals got three runs in the third, on four singles (three ground ball singles and a hit batter).

In total Matz went 3.2, allowed 8 hits, 6 earned, with 1 walk, 1 hit batter, and 2 strikeouts. Just one of those nights.

The good part, on the pitching side, was that we got to see Travis Bergen and Jordan Romano, and both looked good. Romano found the strike zone again and he hit 99.3 on the radar.

Last night we had no trouble with Max Scherzer, tonight we couldn’t hit Erick Fedde.

Our runs came on solo homers from Bo Bichette and Lourdes Gurriel. Both seemed to swing the bat better tonight. But we only 5 hits in total.

George Springer didn’t have the debut we were hoping to see. He was 0 for 4. Lots of guys were 0 for. Vlad (for 3 with 2 k and an intentional walk), Biggio (for 4, 2 k), Panik (for 3, 2 k) and Danny Jansen (for 3, walk, strikeout). Danny hit a 97.3 MPH grounder down the third baseline, but it found a glove.

Bo made a couple of good plays on defense and his throws looked much better.

No Jays of the Day today.

Suckage: Matz (-.292, not really fair), and Grichuk (-.101).

The Jays have an off-day tomorrow and then the Braves come to town for a weekend series.

We had 483 comments in the GameThread. EMK19 led us to crushing defeat.