Grichuk drives home 5, Jays beat A’s

Blue Jay 10 A’s 4

The bats got going today.

We needed runs because Hyun Jin Ryu wasn’t sharp. He gave up a home run to start the game and then 3 more in the third. But then he battled through two more to get us through 5 innings, which seems a long outing this season. In all 5 innings, 6 hits, 4 earned, 1 walk, and 6 strikeouts. He seemed to be missing with a lot of his pitches but still only walked one batter.

It did leave 4 innings for the bullpen to cover:

• Travis Bergen walked the first batter he faced. Then he got a ground ball to Vladimir Guererro. Vlad threw it wide of second, but Marcus Semien made a nice diving grab, keeping a foot on the bag. In Vlad’s defense, there was a bit of a disagreement over who was covering second. I think Vlad’s throw was aimed for Bo. An easy double play ended the inning. Bergen started the seventh with a walk but used another double play to get out of it quickly.
• Joel Payamps came in for the eight and walked the leadoff hitter (third inning in a row this game) but got a ground out and a double play to strand the runner. Payamps managed not to walk the leadoff hitter in the ninth, he waited until the third batter before he walked someone, but he got out of the inning again.

In three of the four games of this series, we only used two relievers.

The bats had a good day. Early on, it looked like one of those games where we were going to waste our chances. In the first, Semien and Bo started the game with back-to-back singles, but we didn’t score. Cavan Biggio led off with a single in the second, but we couldn’t even move him to second.

We got:

• Three in the third: Semien led off with a double. Bichette walked but was picked off first by A’s catcher Sean Murphy, while Vlad struck out. It looked like we were wasting another chance. But Teoscar Hernandez walked, and Randal Grichuk homered. 3-1 Jays.
• Two in the fourth: Jonathan Davis led off with a single, and Danny Jansen followed with his first home run of the season (107.3 MPH, earlier he had a ground out his at 104 MPH). 5-4 Jays
• Four in the sixth: Singles by Semien and Bichette, plus Vlad reaching on an error, loaded the bases. Teoscar singled in two, and Grichuk doubled in two more. 9-4 Jays.
• 1 in the seventh: Semien home run. 10-4.

We had 16 hits in all. Semien had 4 (he was a triple short the cycle). Bo and Cavan had 3 (and Bo had 2 steals, trying to make up for being picked off). Grichuk had 2 hits. Grichuk had 5 RBI.

The only Jays not to hit were Vlad (0 for 5, looking somewhere disinterested at the plate, but he was good with the glove).

The defense looked good today. Other than a two-base error by Teoscar in right, he went down to his knees to pick up a ground ball single, then lifted his glove to have it go under and past him. Ryu was struggling a bit at that point but didn’t let the runner score.

Jays of the Day: Grichuk (.304 WPA), Jansen (.173), Bo (.167), Semien (.128), and Hernandez (.109).

Suckage: Ryu (-.218) and Vlad (-.146).

The Jays go to Houston for a weekend series starting tomorrow. Ross Stripling gets the start to open the series.

We had 520 comments in the GameThread. EMK19 led us to the big win.