Jays win fourth in a row

Blue Jays 3 Marlins 1

Yet another great start from Robbie Ray. 6 innings, 4 hits, the obligatory solo home run, 1 walk, and 6 strikeouts. I wonder what his chances are to make the All-Star game? I guess we are going to be sending a few hitters, so there might not be room for a pitcher.

But he’s having an All-Star type season.

Tim Marza pitched a great seventh inning, much like his eighth inning yesterday.

Tyler Chatwood had a quick eighth, with a bit of strangeness, he hit the knob of the bat against Starling Marte, then stuck him out on a very iffy check-swing call by a first base umpire who had a tough night.

Jordan Romano got the ninth. He gave up a leadoff double to worry us, but then got a couple of easy ground outs and a strikeout.

It seemed like another game where we should have scored more. We got:

• Two in the first: Bo Bichette singled, Vladimir Guerrero walked, Teoscar Hernandez doubled home Bo, and Vlad scored on George Springer’s ground out. At that point, it looked like one of those games we’d score 10.
• One in the fifth: Marcus Semien (how long will it be before I stop automatically putting ‘Stroman’ in after Marcus?) doubled off the wall in left-center. Bo singled and Marcus scored (I wasn’t sure it was a great time to send him, no out and a close play at the plate, but Marcus was safe). Strikeouts from Vlad, Teoscar, and Springer made me happy Rivera sent him.

We had 8 hits and 2 walks, so it seemed like we should have scored more. We loaded the bases in the second, and Vlad hit a line drive 99.9 MPH, with a .460 xBA but it was caught in left. I thought he cleared the bases. It would have been a much different game if that ball hit the ground.

Vlad had another day of saving his infielders fielding average making at least three excellent plays at first.

And Ray made a nice play on a 3-1 out, he wasn’t going to beat the runner to first, so he tagged him instead. Very heads up.

First-base umpire Ryan Willis had a rough night. He had a call challenged and overturned in the top and bottom of the first inning. He had another call overturned before it got to a challenge, the other umpires took pity on him and fixed his bad call. Late in the game, there was another of his calls challenged, but the replay showed that Cavan Biggio didn’t touch first (there seems to be an epidemic of that lately).

I’m glad we don’t have a third game with the Marlins, Willis would be behind the plate.

Jays of the Day: Ray (.225 WPA) and Hernandez (.106).

No Suckage Jays.

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