Jays Lose to Red Sox

Blue Jays 1 Red Sox 2

We can’t buy a hit with runners in scoring position.

The good:

• Yusei Kikuchi went 5 innings, giving up just 3 hits, 3 walks, 1 earned with 3 strikeouts. He had four balls chopped out to him and made good plays on all four. He was hitting mid-90s on the fastball. His one run allowed was on back-to-back doubles in the third inning. And he gave up a couple of walks to start the game. But, other than that, he was very impressive.
• Zack Collins hit his second home run of the season (in the second inning). He’s been far better than we had any right to hope. He had 2 hits, the home run and a double (the only extra-base hits we had.
• Vlad also had two hits, as did Alejandro Kirk (both of his were infield hits, the wheels on that man).
• The bullpen was very good. David Phelps, Yimi Garcia and Trevor Richards only allowed one hit in their three innings.
• Lourdes Gurriel made a very nice catch in left-center, running a long way to make the play.

The Bad:

• We were 0 for 5 with RISP. The worst came in the third inning. Springer and Vlad reached with one out, but Gurriel lined out (a well-hit ball), and Collins struck out. And the fourth inning when Chapman and Kirk started the inning with singles, but Raimel Tapia and Santiago Espinal both struck out, and Springer lined out (again, making pretty good contact).
• Bo Bichette made two throwing errors. In the seventh inning, the second one led to the Red Sox's winning run. Bobby Dalbec ground one to Bo, who bounced it past Vlad at first base. Earlier in the game, Bo threw one high over Vlad.
• We had 9 strikeouts. It was a game when the plate umpire had a good grasp on the strike zone, but in the 8th, Vlad had two pitches called strikes that were just off the plate (and strike three that was right on the edge of the zone. That was a big at-bat in a one-run game. Vlad does a nice job taking two pitches off the plate and gets punished for it.

Jays of the Day: Kikuchi (.171 WPA). And let’s give an honourable mention to Collins for having our two extra-base hits.

Suckage: Bo (-.100 WPA plus the two errors, 0 for 4), Lourdes (-.144, 0 for 4), Tapia (-.161, 0 for 4, 2 strikeouts), Espinal (-.153, 0 for 4, 1 k). Garcia had the number too, but that was on Bo’s error.

Jays are now 6-5. Tomorrow we have Jose Berrios vs. Nick Pivetta. Neither has had a good start to the season.