Not the start we wanted from Pearson, Jays lose

Blue Jays 4 Astros 7

That was one long game. Maybe because we were behind early and by a lot, or maybe because it was 3:30.

It wasn’t the start we wanted to see from Nate Pearson. He fought his way through the first, giving up a one-out walk and a two-out single. The second went walk, walk, fly out, fly out, single (loading the bases), walk (scoring a run), pop up. And the third got worse fly out, walk, triple (right through Rowdy Tellez at first, things would have been so much better if he made the play), and a single over the drawn-in infield. And that was it for Nate.

In all 2.1, 4 hits, 3 earned, 5 walks, and no strikeouts. When he threw strikes, he was getting soft contact (other than the triple at 102 mph). But he didn’t throw enough strikes and he didn’t get any strikeouts. He left with us down 3-0/

I don’t want to read too much in one start, but he’s gotta figure out where the strike zone is.

Joel Payamps got the next four outs, giving up a home run.

Anthony Kay wasn’t much better than Nate. 2.1 innings, 4 hits, 3 earned, 2 walks, 3 strikeouts, and a home run.

The load bright spots, among the pitchers, was A.J. Cole who gave us 2 perfect innings.

On offense?

Well, all our runs were scored in the fifth inning. We had five straight hits: Tellez homered, Reese McGuire singled, Marcus Semien singled, Bo Bichette doubled and Vlad Guerrero singled. Four runs in. Unfortunately, it ended there. The Astros took Zack Greinke out of the game and we only had 2 more hits the rest of the way.

We had 11 hits. 2 each from Semien, Bichette, Hernandez and Tellez (who thankfully we didn’t pinch hit for today). O for went to Randal Grichuk and Cavan Biggio.

The best moments came on defense:

• Will runners on first and second and none out, Myles Straw tried to steal third and McGuire made a very nice throw to get it rather easily.
• And, same inning, two outs, Martin Maldonado on first, Mickey Brantley hit a double to the left-field wall. Lourdes Gurriel played it well off the wall, made an excellent throw to Cavan Biggio playing cutoff man, and Biggio threw a strike to McGuire at first for the out.

With all the injuries we’ve had, I don’t see that there is any other choice than to have Pearson start again in five days. Though maybe they could switch him and Kay and see if working in relief lets him relax a bit more.

No Jays of the Day today. Bichette hat the high mark at .068.

Suckage: Pearson (-.202), Biggio (-.110, though the throw on the relay should bring that back some), and Grichuk (-.107).

No game tomorrow. We have three against the Braves starting Tuesday.

We had 492 comments. EMK led us to bitter defeat.