Bo drives in 5, Jays win!

Rays 1 Blue Jays 6

Robbie Ray deserves a standing ovation or a medal or an 18-wheeler filled with money. But, I’d really like to give him a contract with the words “Blue Jays” stamped all over it.

Anyway, Ray threw 7 innings, allowed 4 hits, 1 earned, 0 walks, and 13 strikeouts (his league-leading 10th game this season with double digits in strikeouts. Ray now has 8 starts without a walk this year and 16 with 1 or fewer walks. That’s what amazes me the most about his season with the Jays.

The one run against was a wall-scrapper home run by Mike Zunino (347 feet, .240 expected batting average.

I’m hoping he feels somewhat indebted to Pete Walker.

Joakim Soria didn’t look as good in the eighth. He gave up a single and a Brett Phillips home run to start the inning but then had a strikeout, ground out, and fly out. After that, he just wanted Jordan Romano to get another save opportunity.

Romano picked up his 18th save, throwing just 11 pitches to get through his inning.

On offense, it was the Bo show. He drove in 5 of our 6 runs. He had a 3-run homer, a sac fly, and an RBI single. The other run came on a Teoscar Hernandez single.

We had 7 hits on the day, all from the top five in the order. Bo and Vlad had 2 hits each (Vlad also had a walk). Springer, Semien (also with a walk), and Hernandez had one hit each.

Springer singled in the fifth and then went first to third on a wild pitch (just barely safe). He seems determined to show he can run). And then scored on an infield single by Bo.

Vlad’s two hits were crushed. A 116.7 MPH double and a 105.5 MPH single.

On the defensive side, Randal Grichuk made a great catch coming in on a pop fly to short center. He seems determined to show that he can be a good center fielder lately. He has made a handful of spectacular catches lately.

Jays of the Day: Ray (.214 WPA),Bo (.200) and Vlad (.130).

No one came close to the Suckage number. The low mark was Kirk at -.024, but then he did a nice job with Ray today.

The Jays have tomorrow off. And then the Twins are in town for a weekend series.

We had 476 comments in the GameThread, not bad for an afternoon game. A quick afternoon game at that, 2:29 was the game time. I led us to a drama-free win, maybe because I had a couple of beers at lunch. The drink of champions.