Crappy Pitching, Defense and Hitting Adds up to a Jays Loss

Jays 3 Rays 6

Oh, that was awful.

Manoah had nothing. Well....he seemed to be good at getting to 2 strikes but then had troubles after that. He threw a ton of pitches and only made it through 3 innings. He gave up 3 hits, 5 runs, 4 earned, 5 walks with 6 strikeouts. I guess he was getting some strikeouts.

Not that it was all his fault. The defense added to the difficulties. There was only 1 ‘official error’, but several bad plays:

• In the first, with one out, Wander Franco lines one to left center. Kevin Kiermaier tried to cut it off after the bounce but missed, and by the time Daulton Varsho tracked it down, it was a triple. It should have been a single.
• Next batter, Randy Arozarena up, the Jays played the infield in, despite it being the first inning, despite being up one nothing. Arozarena rolled one thru between third and short. Infield back, that’s an out.
• Same inning, on a strikeout pitch, the ball got away from Alejandro Kirk, he chased it up the first base line, but his throw was just too late to get the out. Watching it again, Kirk didn’t put much on that throw. He needed to throw it hard. A good throw, and that’s an out.
• And, still the same inning, a ground ball was hit at Cavan Biggio at second base, which should have been an easy double play, but Cavan booted it and only got the out at second. Not an ‘error’ because of a stupid line in the rule book about not being able to presume a double play. Well, you could have presumed one there. The Rays got 2 runs in the inning. Decent defense and they could have been out without a run scoring.
• The one ‘official’ error of the game was on a Kirk throw trying to get a runner stealing third. The throw wasn’t terrible, but Chapman had it go off his glove, and the runner scored.

Beyond that, Manoah was using the full clock on his pitches, so runners on first could just take off at the 1-second mark and get easy steals. The Rays had 7 steals on the day, which wasn’t Kirk’s fault. Not much you can do with runners getting that good a job.

The Rays only had 5 hits on the day and still scored 6 runs.

On offence, we didn’t do much. 8 hits in total. Kirk had 3 of them. Kiermaier hit into a couple of double plays. Both times he hit the ball hard (over 94.4 and 93.3 mph) but right at an infielder. We had 0 fors from Varsho (who did walk), Chapman, and Lukes.

We did load the bases in the ninth. Kirk and Kiermaier each singled. Springer walked. Bichette walked in a run, and Ernie Clement hit a sac fly. But Vlad ground out, and that was the game.

About the only good part of the game was the 3 perfect innings of relief from Trevor Richards. Tim Mayza had a good inning of relief too. On the other hand, Adam Cimber doesn’t look right out there. They send down Thomas Hatch to activate him. I’d rather have Hatch at the moment.

Jays of the Day: Belt (.118) was the only one with the number, but I’m giving one to Richards.

The Other Award: Manoah (-.367), as mentioned, some of that is on our defense, but Alek was not good. and Kiermaier (-.133, plus the misplay in CF).

The Jays are off to Minnesota to play the Twins. It almost has to get better, but I’m not willing to bet on it at the moment.