Jays Win Their 4th in a Row

Blue Jays 3 Astros 2

I don’t want to sound unappreciative, but the occasional blowout would be a good thing. On the other hand, that is four wins in a row for our Jays.

Today, we got another excellent start from Alek Manoah. He did give up a two-run home run in the first to Alex Bregman. But that would be the only runs he’d allow in 6 innings. Alek gave up 7 hits (with the Bregman homer the only extra-base hit allowed), no walks, no hit batters, with 5 strikeouts. A very nice performance. He is now 3-0 on the season.

We didn’t do much on offense.

George Springer hit a home run to start off the game. Nice to see, since I had some worries that his injury was worse than the team had led on.

Then in the sixth, Bo led off with a single, and Vlad moved him to third on another single. Then Lourdes popped one just beyond second base that the Astros second baseman, Niko Goodrum and shortstop Jeremy Peña chased, and Goodrum caught, despite their collision. Bichette read the play very well and tagged up the shortest sac fly I’d seen in my life, I’m sure. But, he had no play with Goodrum running hard away from the plate and then falling with the collision.

Then Santiago Espinal hit his second home run in two days. Not crushed, but a respectable 364 feet, hit at 98.1 MPH. The left-field wall isn’t that far away in Houston.

We had just 8 hits on the day. Vlad was the only Jay with 2 hits. Reimel Tapia and Cavan Biggio had 0 fors.

And, if we are going to win one-run games, the bullpen has to do a good job:

• David Phelps got the first two outs of the seventh, giving up a walk, but getting 2 strikeouts.
• Ryan Borucki got the last out of the seventh.
• Yimi Garcia pitched a quick eighth, with 2 strikeouts. That’s hold number 5 for Yimi.
• And Adam Cimber, giving Jordan Romano a day off, gave up a leadoff single but then got a strikeout. The next batter Aledmys Diaz lined one hard, but Vlad made a great catch at first and stepped on the bag to get the double play and end the game. It was hit at 100.4 MPH. It may have been a bit lucky, but Cimber gets his first save of the season and his second (third in his career) as a Blue Jay.

Jays of the Day: Cimber (.174 WPA), Garcia (.128), Espinal (.164), and Vlad (.102).

Suckage: Tapia (-.180 for his 0 for 4). Not fair, really, he had a couple of good long at-bats, and hit the ball hard a couple of times, just didn’t get it to fall.

The Jays are now 10-5, sitting in first place in the AL East.