Jays Lose to Astros Again

Astros 6 Blue Jays 3

The Jays had a very sloppy game throughout. They had three different instances of outfielders and infielders converging on each other and not getting out of the way enough, with the third one resulting in Randal Grichuk running pretty solidly into Marcus Semien. Thankfully nobody was hurt, but they didn’t appear very happy with each other.

Rowdy Tellez made an error in the 7th inning on a very easy grounder, and almost saved the play, but after review it was reversed and continued the bad inning.

In the 8th inning, Lourdes Gurriel Jr. gave up on a ball far too soon, trying to get himself in position to throw out Alex Bregman going for second as opposed to taking the easy out by just catching it.

The pitchers threw 2 wild pitches, although neither of them ultimately changed things.

Danny Jansen hit a double over DH Yordan Alvarez in LF. However, on a grounder up the middle, he was thrown out at third, and strained his hamstring. Reese McGuire came in to start the 4th inning, and we’ll now wait and see if Jansen will be the next one to head to the Injured List.

The home plate ump didn’t have a good game either, with some frustratingly inconsistent calls. But such is the life of human umpires.

The Pitching

Steven Matz had a bad game, although it definitely could have been a lot worse. He allowed the leadoff batter to reach in each of his 5 innings, including leadoff home runs in the 1st and 2nd innings to Jose Altuve and Chas McCormick. The other 2 runs against him came on a 2-run bloop single in the top of the 3rd. He managed to strand a bunch of runners throughout though, with one each in the first 3 innings, then stranded 2 runners in the 4th. He left walk on with 1 out in the 5th, who was also ultimately stranded.

Matz’ final line was 4.1 innings, 4 runs on 8 hits and 4 walks, striking out 3 and allowing the 2 home runs. He also threw a wild pitch. All things considered, 4 runs doesn’t seem so bad.

Anthony Castro relieved Matz, striking out the two batters he faced in the 5th to end the inning. He came back out for the 6th, and also allowed the leadoff batter on with a walk. But 3 groundouts later and he was out of it. He did a good job keeping the Jays within striking distance, down 4-1.

Tim Mayza started the 7th inning, and for the first time in the game the Astros didn’t get the leadoff batter on. However, the next two batters hit bloops, the first one misread by Randal Grichuk in CF, and that was it for Mayza.

Newcomer Carl Edwards Jr. came on in relief of Mayza with 1 out in the 7th, and immediately loaded the bases after a wild pitch and a walk. He got a pop up to get the second out, the aforementioned one to Semien that Grichuk ran into him after the out was recorded. Then the grounder to Tellez that he booted and allowed a run to score. He got out of the inning with a popup a couple feet in front of home that Joe Panik made the running catch on, which was probably the least confident I have ever felt about a popup.

Joel Payamps got the 8th inning, and after missing a strikeout thanks to umpire inconsistency, got Correa to line out to Bichette. Bregman followed that with the double that should have been caught by Gurriel. A chopper back to the mound advanced Bregman to 3rd, and then Yuli Gurriel drove him home with a single, running the score to 6-1. A popup ended the inning.

Payamps came back out for the 9th after the Jays scored 2, and got 2 quick strikeouts. But after a walk, we were exposed to yet another pitching change, and Tyler Chatwood came to promptly strike out Altuve to end the inning.

The Batting

On the offensive side of things, the Jays bats couldn’t muster much of anything against Luis Garcia. He threw 6 excellent innings, and he probably should have gone longer with only 79 pitches. He allowed 1 run on 3 hits and 2 walks, striking out 8. He made the top of the order look very bad, going a combined 0-9 with 3 strikeouts.

The Jays got their first run in the 2nd inning. Teoscar Hernández led things off with a single. Grichuk followed him with a 5 pitch walk. Panik hit a fielder’s choice that moved Teo to 3rd, and he scored on a Gurriel sac fly.

After Jansen led off with the double in the 3rd, things were looking promising. But Jose Altuve made a good play to get Jansen going to 3B, then made another great play on a Bo Bichette grounder to hole. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. struck out with Semien on second to end that threat.

The 4th inning was another threat that went nowhere, as Rowdy Tellez struck out on an inside curveball after watching 2 fastballs go right over the plate, stranding a Panik double and the rare Gurriel walk. The Gurriel walk was the last baserunner to reach until the 8th inning.

In the 8th, the 4th time through the batting order, things got a little bit better. Semien started things off by taking a “hit by pitch” (I really don’t think it hit him). Bichette followed that with a flare to right field, and Guerrero walked to load the bases. Teo got the Jays’ 2nd run in with a fielder’s choice grounder to Altuve. Randal Grichuk drove in the 3rd run of the game with a liner up the middle. But a Panik grounder ended any hopes of getting closer than 6-3.

Ryan Pressly shut down the Jays in the 9th, allowing a 2-out walk to Reese McGuire right after Buck and Tabby were drooling over Pressly’s ability to throw strikes. He got Semien to ground out to end it.

Jays of the Day

Absolutely nobody. Only 4 Blue Jays had positive contributions to the game - Grichuk (0.77) Jansen (0.60), Castro (.056) and Chatwood (.004).

Suckage

Matz (-0.222) was the only one with the number, as the loss was very well spread out otherwise. 12 of the 16 Blue Jays had a negative WPA.

It was a pretty quiet gamethread this Sunday afternoon. Just 394 comments, with EMK19 taking the win in the loss.