Sloppy play, Jays lose to Rays

Rays 5 Blue Jays 1

Once again, Bob Rae was terrific. 7 innings. It should have been only 1 earned run, a solo homer by Wander Franco (his 2nd MLB home run).

It should have been a two-homer, but Randy Arozarena, who walked just before Franco’s at-bat, got caught stealing on an excellent throw from Danny Jansen.

After the home run, Ray gave up a double to Yandy Diaz. Then Austin Meadows lined one right at Teoscar Hernandez in right field. Teoscar took a couple of steps in, allowing the ball to go over his head. But, as radivel pointed out, Teo’s play was so bad. He wasn’t given an error. Teoscar chased down the ball, threw it to the infield. Vladimir Guerrero relayed it home, but too late to get the runner from second. Jansen threw to third, and Meadows was called out. The play was challenged, and I thought we would lose it, but they went with the call on the field.

As Joe Siddal pointed out, as well as not catching the ball, Teoscar was rather a slow chasing after it, which likely cost us a chance at throwing out the runner at the plate.

Ray allowed just 5 hits and 2 walks, with 6 strikeouts. However, he could have used some run support.

Adam Climber pitched an excellent eight. Rafael Dolis just added to the roster, got the ninth because there was the possibility of the game ending in under 3 hours. Unfortunately, Dolis was a victim of another Bo error. Ground ball, Bo gets to it but doesn’t have a play. So he spins and throws well wide of first—two-base error. Meadows follows with a double off the right-field wall, and we were down two.

Another double and another run put him out of the game.

Taylor Saucedo came in and gave up a sac fly, putting us down another run

We didn’t do much on offense.

Randal Grichuk had a solo home run in the second inning. Franco’s home run for the Rays, Grichuk’s home run came just after a Hernandez’ caught stealing. Between that and his non-error error, Teoscar didn’t have an impressive day.

Also, in the not impressing us file, Bo Bichette made an official error at short, on a routine ground ball, in the fifth inning, and then in the sixth, Bo singled but was picked off first. So it wasn’t his day. The second error later didn’t help either.

We only had six hits on the day and just two extra-base hits, Randal's home run and a double by Vlad hit 110 MPH. Bo had two singles.

After winning the first two games of the series, I was hoping for another good game at the plate to get the sweep.

Ryan Yarbrough pitched an excellent 5 innings. Collin McHugh was equally good for two innings. Diego Castillo pitched the ninth. He gave up a leadoff single to Bo, but got out of the inning.

A mini-rant. After Santiago Espinal hit his first MLB home run yesterday and lefty Yarbourgh starting today, one might have expected Espinal to play today. But no, Biggio was out there. Why?

Because he has 8 hits in 17 at-bats against Yarbrough. When are managers going to stop buying into small sample sizes?

Jays of the Day: Ray (.115 WPA).

Suckage: Semien (-.112), Dolis (-.117), Teoscar (-.091, plus the bad play in the outfield and the caught stealing), and Bo for the two errors and getting picked off at second.

We have an off-day tomorrow and then head to Baltimore to face the Orioles (who swept the Astros last week).

We had 299 comments in the GameThread. I led us to defeat.