Vlad Homers, Jays win

Phillies 0 Blue Jays 4

That was a very nice start from Anthony Kay. It would have been nice if he could have gone one more inning to get a shot at the win and subtract one inning from what we needed the bullpen to do, but it was a very nice start. He went 4 innings, allowed 1 hit, and 2 walks with 6 strikeouts, lowering his ERA to 7.24.

I hope he gets another start in 5 days and maybe is a little stingier with the pitch count and goes a little deeper into the game.

And, after a bad day yesterday, the bullpen did its usual great job:

• Travis Bergen gave up a single in his scoreless inning with a strikeout.
• A.J. Cole went 1.2, allowed 2 hits, and had 3 strikeouts. I was kind of wondering why he came out after throwing a nice pitch to get a strikeout.
• Tyler Chatwood followed, with the runner on second and walked Andrew McCutchen (on four pitches, none of them particularly close), bringing the tying run to the plate, but then he struck out Jean Segura on three pitches. He gave up a double in the 8th, over Hernandez in right, after throwing what looked like strike three. He had a couple of strikes called balls in the eighth.
• Jordan Romano got the ninth, even though it wasn’t a save situation. He gave up a walk and single but got 2 strikeouts.

Offensively, we did enough. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hit his tenth home run, another opposite-field home run, in the first. And we got two in the second. Cavan Biggio had his first of two hits and scored on Lourdes Gurriel’s double. Gurriel went to third on an error. The Phillies had 4 official errors and a couple of unofficial ones. Watching them, I felt much better about our defense. Reese McGuire singled home Lourdes.

And we got a bonus run in the eighth, Grichuk doubled, and, an out later, Gurriel popped one up that the Phillies shortstop and second baseman let fall in between them.

We had 10 hits, with just one walk (Teoscar Hernandez with his sixth of the season, against five home runs. Last year he had two more home runs than walks. This year looks like it will be just as close a race.

Biggio and Gurriel had 2 hits each. Semien had an 0 fors.

On the defensive side, Cavan made one spectacular play at third:

Gurriel had a tough time on a couple of fly balls to left. My wife rarely comments on a player’s defense, but she wondered why he couldn’t cover a bit more ground.

Teoscar Hernandez had a fly ball go over his head in the eight that likely should have been caught.

Jays of the Day: Kay (.195 WPA), Gurriel (.126), and Vlad (.104).

Suckage: Randal (-.086). He had a rough day but got a double in the eighth.

Tomorrow we have a day game, 1:00 Eastern start time. Bob Rae (1-1, 3.38) gets the start. Our old friend Chase Anderson (2-3, 5.23) goes for the Phillies. If he shuts us down, I’ll be pretty upset.

We had 756 comments in the GameThread. I led us to victory.