Jays Lose in Extras

Red Sox 2 Blue Jays 1 (eighth innings)

That was one we should have won. What’s the line? For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these, ‘It might have been.’ Well, maybe it wasn’t that bad, it is just a baseball game.

At the risk of repeating Buck and Dan, we have been blessed with great starting pitching lately.

Jose Berrios was excellent. 6 innings, 5 hits, 1 earned (a wall scraper home run, but then to center where the wall is a long way away), no walks, and 6 strikeouts. Our starters have been really locked into the strike zone.

He had all his trouble in the sixth. Alex Verdugo hit the home run. Then Rafael Devers, with two outs, ground one hard at Vladimir Guerrero at first, and it went through Vlad. Clearly, an error, of course, called a double. The next batter, Hunter Renfroe, ground one into the hole, but Bo Bichette made an amazing dive, stopped it up, and skipped a perfect throw to first. If it got past Bo, a run would have scored.

Trevor Richards had his troubles in the seventh. He walked the leadoff hitter, Marwin Gonzalez. Christian Vazquez singles. Franchy Cordero tried to bunt, bunted through a ball, and Reese McGuire threw behind Gonzalez, getting him in a rundown and out. Vazquez went to second. Cordero struck out, and Reese threw out Vazquez, trying to steal third. A very neat double play and a great defensive inning for Reese.

Adam Cimber came in for the eight (with the Manfred Man on second). Jonathan Arauz hit a soft ground single, scoring Manfred Mann. Two outs later, Xander Bogaerts singled (just past Marcus Semien), putting runners on the corners. Out goes Cimber, in comes Brad Hand.

Offensively, we didn’t have much luck against Tanner Houck.

We got a run off him in the fourth:

Bo Bichette led off with a single. Went to second on a ground out. After an intentional walk to Corey Dickerson (Houck has troubles with lefties). Randal Grichuk struck out. Red Sox brought in lefty Josh Taylor. I was calling for a pinch hitter, but Breyvic Valera singled home Bo. I’m sorry I doubted you, Breyvic. Unfortunately, McGuire couldn’t extend the inning.

In the eighth, Vlad was the Manfred Man. Semien hit a fly ball to medium-deep right, and Vlad tagged up. Bo up, in a spot where we couldn’t have a strikeout. He didn’t strikeout. He ground out into the drawn-in infield, leaving Vlad at third. Teoscar Hernandez struck out, and that was the game.

I don’t know why we can never score that runner from second.

Our offense was anemic (in both games today). We only had 6 hits. Corey Dickerson had two of them. Reese, Randal, Teoscar, and George all had 0 fors tonight.

Get them tomorrow, guys. Maybe score some runs.

Jays of the Day: Hand (.286, for the one out, but it was a big one), Berrios (.242), Richards (.147), and Dickerson (.147).

Suckage: Cimber had the number (-.157), but Fangraphs doesn’t know what to do with the Manfred Man yet. But it wasn't his best outing as a Jay.

And pretty much the entire batting lineup: Teoscar (-.269), Bo (-.263), Vlad (-.218), and Randal (-.100) George (-.125).

Reese had the number-.155, but that doesn’t consider his terrific defense in the seventh, so I won’t give him the honor. Maybe Bo should be saved by that terrific play and throw, but we need him to hit the ball in the air, and he didn’t.

Tomorrow we have a 1:00 start. Garrett Richards (6-7, 5.21, we should hit him) vs. Hyun Jin Ryu (11-5, 3.22). Let’s get the win.

We had 768 in the GameThread. Paigne led us to bitter defeat.