Bad start from Ryu, Jays lose to Twins

Twins 7 Blue Jays 3

There were a couple of good moments in that game.

• Vlad hit home run number 46.
• Nate Pearson pitched a very nice inning, getting 3 strikeouts after giving up a leadoff single.
• Lourdes Gurriel made a heck of a catch, going back on a ball over his head in left. He must be working on going back on the ball because he is doing it so much better lately.

But that was pretty much it for good moments.

Hyun Jin Ryu had a bad start for the third time in his last four starts.

Today he gave up a run in the second, off a walk and a double. And then four in the third, single, double, home run, and home run. All without getting an out in the inning.

In total, he went just 2 innings, allowed 5 hits, 5 earned, 1 walk, and 2 strikeouts. It is time for Pete Walker to work some magic.

Ross Stripling came in and allowed a third home run in a row, but then gave us 3 scoreless innings after that.

Julian Merryweather gave up a home run in his inning of work.

As mentioned, Pearson looked terrific in his inning.

Ryan Borucki got two quick outs, before walking two in a row, but then got out of the inning.

Adam Cimber threw a quick ninth, helped by Jansen throwing out a base stealer.

Offensively, we didn’t go nearly enough against Michael Pineda. He seemed to keep everything to the outer edge of the plate, or off the outside edge. We did get three runs off him:

• Two in the second: Corey Dickerson had a hustle double, Danny Jansen reached on an error by shortstop Jorge Polanco, allowing Corey to score, and Jake Lamb drove in with Jansen with a double and got to third with the help of an error.
• One in the third: Vlad homered, crushing on 110.7 MPH, 399 feet (not his hardest-hit ball, he had a 111.7 MPH line out to CF, only a .850 expected batting average, but right into Buxton’s glove).

But that was it for the offense.

We only had 5 hits on the night. We should do better against Pineda and the Twins bullpen. Dickerson had two of our hits.

No Jays of the Day. Lamb had the high mark at .076.

Suckage: Ryu (-.391 WPA) and Gurriel (-.092, for a 1 for 4, though likely deserves points back for that catch. His double in the ninth didn’t really help of WPA).

Tomorrow we have a 3:00 start. Steven Matz (12-7, 3.87) vs. Bailey Ober (2-2, 4.12 ERA).

We had 448 comments in the GameThread. DangYouToHeck led us to a dismal defeat.