Gurriel hits a Grand Slam, Jays beat Orioles

Orioles 0 Blue Jays 9

This one was over before the Jays made their second out of the bottom of the first.

Dean Kremer had all sorts of trouble. He walked the first three batters. Then Teoscar Hernandez singled home our first run. Randal Grichuk ground out, bringing in run number two. Another walk, Cavan Biggio this time loaded the bases again, and Lourdes Gurriel unloaded them, hitting his first career grand slam. Another walk ended Kremer’s night, coming in with a 6.20 ERA, leaving with a 7.25.

Adam Plutko came and got the last two outs of the inning. He gave up a Vladimir Guererro home run in the second and two more runs in the third: Reese McGuire singled, and then we had back-to-back doubles from Marcus Semien and Bo Bichette.

That would be the end of our scoring, but it was plenty.

We had 10 hits, and 5 walks.

McGuire had three hits (a couple of them off-balance swings, but when things are falling for you, you can do no wrong). Teoscar had 2 hits. Everyone in the lineup reached base at least once, though Randal Grichuk reached on an error.

Anthony Kay was good, 5 innings, 5 hits, 2 walks, and 8 strikeouts. His first time through the lineup, he allowed 4 singles and had 5 strikeouts.

All the hits against him were singles, and 4 of 5 were softly hit. At least three were barely fought off things that were just over the infield.

But he threw too many pitches, went to full counts too much, and was running on flumes by the end of his fifth inning.

Not that it is a real complaint, he was throwing 97 (with the odd 98) on his fastball, and very little was hit hard.

Up nine early, we were able to get an inning of work for a few guys who had been sitting too long (maybe we have too many guys in the pen?).

Anthony Castro, Patrick Murphy, Jacob Barnes, and Taylor Saucedo each threw a scoreless inning. Nice to see each of them do well.

Five wins in a row. A week ago the sky was falling. But we knew the first bit of the season was going to be tough, playing all the top teams. They do have to continue to beat on the Orioles though.

Jay of the Day: Gurriel (.132 for the grand slam).

No Suckage Jays. Amazingly McGuire had the low mark at -.005, even with the 3 hits, but then the game was decided before he had his first one.

We deserved a low-drama game.

We had 556 comments in the GameThread. I led us to a low-stress win.