Jays hit four home runs, thump the Yankees

Blue Jays 8 Yankees 0

We have wanted to see the Jays score early, and today they did. They scored early and they scored often.

First inning, one out, Marcus Semien and Vladimir Guerrero go back-to-back. Vlad’s was his 40th of the season, and it came after the home plate ump called ball four a strike, so thank you, ump, for messing that one up.

The way Hyun Jin Ryu was throwing, those two runs looked enough. Still, we added one more in the seventh: Teoscar Hernandez walked, stole second (oversliding the bag but getting back before the fielder), and scored on a Lourdes Gurriel single.

And one more in the ninth: Teoscar hit his 25th home run of the season.

To make it a laugher, Marcus Semien hit a grand slam in the ninth, his 37th home run of the season.

We only had 7 hits, Vlad had 3 and Semien had 2, both homers. We did have 5 walks. And the Yankees made 3 errors. Two by our old friend Geo Urshela and one from Gleyber Torres, but we made a couple of baserunning errors to even things out. Lourdes was picked off first base and George Springer, on second, watching a fly into center, and when Brett Gardner made a nice diving catch, took off for third. He must have thought it was dropped.

Springer didn’t look healthy today. And then, in the eighth, he fouled one off his knee. He finished the at-bat, but his next time around Jake Lamb hit in his place, taking a walk.

I’d imagine we’ll see Springer on the bench tomorrow. I know he wants to play, but every at-bat looked painful today.

As mentioned, Ryu was terrific. 6 innings, just 3 hits, no walks with 6 strikeouts. He came out of the game at 80 pitches, but then his last start unraveled in a hurry, so with Judge and Stanton coming up, bringing someone in didn’t seem like a bad idea, as much as I like my starters to go deep, maybe it was best to err on the side of caution.

Trevor Richards came in and got Judge and Stanton to strike out. Anthony Rizzo had a bunt single (against the shift), but Gary Sanchez popped up.

Tim Mayza pitched a quick eighth.

Adam Cimber gave up a leadoff single but got out of the inning with a strikeout and double play.

Jays of the Day: Ryu (.368 WPA), Vlad (.110) and I’m giving one to Semien because I figure if you hit two homers and drive in 5, you deserve one.

Suckage: Bo had the number, -.098, for an 0 for 5, with 1 k. But he had a pretty good day in the field.

Tomorrow we are back to evening games, 7:00 Eastern. Steven Matz (10-7, 3.80) vs. Gerrit Cole (14-6, 2.73).

We had 590 comments in the GameThread. EMK19 led us to a drama-free victory.

I’m feeling sorry for the ones who declared the season over a couple of weeks ago, they are missing a lot of fun. The Jays are now 3.5 games back of the Wild Card and on a 5 game winning streak. Astros, if you wanted to beat the Mariners today, I’d be ok with that.