Guerrero Homers, Jays Win

Blue Jays 6 Tigers 0

One of the things that either makes baseball great, or makes baseball frustrating, is that you can face a lesser starter one day and not be able to score and then, the next day, you can face a very good starter and knock him out after four innings.

Yesterday, Beau Brieske got his first major league win against the Jays.

Today, Tigers’ Ace, Tarik Skubal, gave up 4 runs in 4 innings. All this after we were told how the Jays are having a hard time hitting against lefties.

We managed 7 hits, 4 earned, 2 walks with 5 strikeouts against Skubal. We scored all 4 runs in the fourth inning.

• The inning started with a hard-hit single by Bo Bichette.
• Vladimir Guerrero followed with his 14th home run of the year. It was a no-doubter. 107.4 MPH and 421 feet. Of course, Vlad had a single in the first hit harder, 111.6 MPH, but launch angle made that a grounder.
• After an Alejandro Kirk strikeout, Teoscar Hernandez doubled down the left-field line.
• After a Santiago Espinal strikeout (chasing a pitch at head level), Lourdes doubled over center-fielder Victor Reyes.
• Gabriel Moreno got his first MLB walk.
• Cavan Biggio drove a ground-rule double to right-center. Tigers right fielder Austin Meadows seemed to lose the ball in the air. It wouldn’t have been an easy catch, but it was very makable. We lost out on seeing Moreno score from first when it bounced over the wall.

4-0, and we knocked their best starter out of the game.

The Jays would get 2 more runs in the eighth. Kirk walked. An out later, Espinal hit a ground-rule double that bounced into the seats off the right-field line. Again Meadows really should have made the catch, but he slid but missed. If it hadn’t bounced out of play, it would have been interesting to see if Kirk could have scored. But Lourdes Gurriel singled both runners home. Moreno hit into a double play to end the inning.

In total, we had 11 hits, including the Vlad homer and doubles from Hernandez, Gurriel, Espinal and two from Biggio. Vlad, Teoscar, Lourdes and Cavan all had two hits. Getting 0 fors were Kirk and Moreno, but each had a walk.

Ross Stripling had another excellent start. 6 innings, just 1 hit, no walks and 4 strikeouts. In his 6 innings, he faced the minimum, with the help of a couple of nice double plays. One, in particular, was fun to watch. Bo made a nice pickup, going to his right, made a perfect feed to second, and Cavan turned it nicely.

Espinal had a couple of good plays at third, and our four-man outfield saved us from a double that would have been in the gap, but with the extra outfielder, it was an easy catch for Teoscar.

Vlad had a throwing error. Playing a long way off first, his throw to Stripling was a little low. At first, it was called an error on Stripling, but it was fixed. So only 2 base runners in Stripling’s 6 innings.

Yimi Garcia, Trent Thornton, and Jordan Romano pitched a scoreless inning each. Thornton gave up the Tigers’ second hit of the day. Romano pitched to get some work. It has been a while since we’ve had a close game. It is nice after every game was close for the first couple of months of the season.

Jays of the Day: Stripling (.259 WPA) and Vlad (.195).

No one gets the other award. Springer had the low mark at -.048. He had a rough day with RISP, but he wasn’t needed today. He came out of the game at 74 pitches, the second-most he’s thrown in a game this year. He had 78 in a start in Cleveland back on May 7th. He will be hard to take out of the rotation if he continues like this.

Tomorrow the Jays are back home. The Orioles are in town for four games. Alek Manoah (7-1, 1.81) and Kyle Bradish (1-3, 6.45, he’s not Brad, but he’s Brad-ish).