Jays win a close one

White Sox 1 Blue Jays 2

That was some game.

Alek Manoah had a great start. 6 innings, 5 hits, 1 earned, 3 walks, and 5 strikeouts. Just a great job. He went to a full count maybe too many times, and his pitch count got pretty high. I expect him to be out of the game after 5, but Charlie sent him out for the sixth. He ended up throwing 108 pitches, And he gave up his run that inning.

He gave up a 1-out line single to Eloy Jimenez and then got really unlikely on two soft ground balls that went through the infield. Both looking like they could have been an inning-ending double play, but they brought Jimenez around to score. Finally, Alek got two pop-outs to get out of the inning.

Manoah said his grandfather passed away, explaining why he was on the bereavement list.

Adam Cimber, Tim Mayza, and Jordan Romano each pitched a perfect inning to close out the game. Romano getting his 12th save. Mayze gets the win.

Once again, we didn’t do much on offense but facing Lance Lynn, that’s understandable. Lynn went 7 innings, allowed just 4 hits, no walks with 4 strikeouts. The one run was in the sixth inning.

Reese McGuire led off with a double. Then Bo Bichette ground out to second behind Reese. Reese went to third, but second baseman Cesar Hernandez threw to third and got the out. Nothing that Reese did wrong (other than perhaps not being a faster runner). With Bo on first, Marcus Semien ground out to short, moving up Bo. Vlad Guerrero went to a 3-0 count, and I thought he would be walked. Apparently, so did Tony La Russa. But Vlad got a pitch on the outer half of the zone and drove it to center field, scoring Bo.

La Russa yelled at his catcher in the dugout afterward. I’m not a fan of yelling at a player on the bench. But Tony isn’t exactly a pleasant guy.

Once again, Reese got on base to lead off the inning in the bottom of the eighth. This time with a single. And this time, Charlie put in Breyvic Valera to pinch run. It turned out to be a very important move.

Bo up next, and White Sox reliever Craig Kimbrel threw a wild pitch on strike three (with Bo swinging at it). Valera moved up to second. Bo tried to go to first, but since there was a runner there (before he moved up), you can’t go to first on a dropped third strike. A Semien ground ball moved Breyvic to third, bringing up Vlad. This time Tony took things into his own hands and walked Vlad.

With Teoscar Hernandez up, Kimbrel threw another wild pitch, and Valera just beat Kimbrel to the plate. Kimbrel went in feet first, looking, I think, to block the plate. But, happily, Breyvic was there first. I didn’t like Kimbrel sliding into the base cleats first, too much chance of an injury.

That turned out to be the winning run, thanks to nice work from Romano.

Jays of the Day: Vlad (.161 WPA), Reese (.133, for a 2 for 3 game), and the pitchers, Manoah (.198), Romano (.173), Mayza (.112), and Cimber (.092, he was pretty pumped up). And I’m giving one to Valera for getting to the plate just in time.

Suckage: Bo (-.229, for an 0 for 4, k), Grichuk (-.117, 0 for 3, k), Semien (-.138, 0 for 4), and Dickerson (-.098, 0 for 3, k).

I don’t know about the Jays, but I needed that win.

We had 612 comments in the GameThread. DangYouToHeck (and his daughter) led us to victory.