Teoscar Hernandez Grand Slam Helps Jays Beat Angels

Blue Jays 10 Angels 2

The game changed in the top of the fifth. Lourdes Gurriel started the inning with a double. Then, right here, the Angels took out starter Dylan (don’t call me Ted) Bundy. The move confused us, Bundy hadn’t been bad, but the Angels had Sam Selman throwing before the inning started. It had me thinking that they had planned to pull Bundy. But Bundy didn’t look happy.

After an out, Santiago Espinal singled Gurriel home, and Espinal went to second on the throw home. Walks to George Springer and Marcus Semien loaded the bases for Vlad, which had us hoping Vlad would choose this moment to come out of his little slump. He didn’t. But Teoscar Hernandez followed up with a grand slam, and we were suddenly up by five.

Before that.

Lourdes Gurriel made a terrific play at first base to end the second inning and then homered to start the third inning. The pitch he hit out was up and in, and he got it all. The play at first was a nicely hit ground ball, right down the right-field line.

And George Springer also hit one out in the third.

There were some interesting defensive plays in the early going. Shohei Ohtani lined the game's second pitch hard, but Teoscar Hernandez made a very nice catch, going back to get it.

On the bad side, Marcus Semien, playing short in place of the hurting Bo Bichette, threw wide of first on what should have been an easy ground out. Lourdes did well to catch it but was pulled well off the bag. I think the throw was a homage to his fallen middle-infield partner.

And Alek Manoah made a ridiculous play on a broken-bat ground ball hit to his right. The bat kind of went by him on the left. He managed to ignore it, slid to the ball, up and then. I guess his grip wasn’t right, but he bounced the ball to first, and Lourdes made a nice grab.

Manoah was as good as we have seen him. He gave up a home run to Shohei Ohtani, but then he hit many home runs. He ended up going 6.2 innings, allowing 5 hits, 2 earned 1 walk and had 11 strikeouts. It seemed to be almost all fastballs for Alek. He threw a 97 MPH fastball in the seventh inning. He could have been out of the game several pitches sooner, but David Fletcher worked a 12-pitch walk that ended his day at 114 pitches.

It is one of the best starts we’ve seen this season.

Tayler Saucedo took over for Alek with 2 on and got a ground ball to end the inning. He ended up getting 4 outs without giving up a baserunner.

Brad Hand threw a nice quick ninth.

We scored an extra two runs in the eighth. With one out, Teoscar singled (really should have been an error on the shortstop. Corey Dickerson also singled, giving us runners on the corners. Alejandro Kirk hit into what should have been an easy double play, but Angels 3B Phil Gosselin dribbled it, turning it into a 5-3 out (not an error for stupid baseball reasons (can’t assume a double play, Ummm sorry, but you could on that one with Kirk running) and allowing the runner on third to score. Lourdes got his third hit of the night, a single, bringing in Dickerson.

And George Springer hit his second home run of the day in the ninth, getting us to double digits in runs.

We had 10 hits, but 4 were home runs (and one of them should have been an error) and just the 2 walks (back-to-back before Teoscar’s home run.

Lourdes had 3 (needed a triple for the cycle), and Teoscar had 2 (and 4 RBI).

Vlad had a frustrating night, going 0 for 4. Kirk and Breyvic Valera also had 0 for 4s.

Jays of the Day: Teoscar (.218 WPA), Lourdes (.195), Espinal (.115), and Springer (.102), and I’m giving one to Alek who’s .044 is so low because we scored so many runs.

Suckage: Vlad had the number (-.116).

We finish up the series with the Angels tomorrow. Berrios vs. Ohtani (that should be fun).

We had 525 comments in the GameThread. EMK19 led us to a very satisfying victory.