Disappointed: Jays lose in the 9th

Blue Jays 2 Indians 1

A really thought we were going to win a 2-1 game, but Roberto Osuna picked up just his 3rd blow save of the year and his second loss.

Roberto left a couple of pitches up and it cost him. He gave up the game tying home run to Jose Ramirez. Then Tyler Naquin hit another deep fly to right. Michael Saunders got to the wall in good time, but mistimed his jump and the ball just missed his glove. That shouldn’t have been the end of the game, but, for some reason, Melvin Upton decided not to back up the play. By the time he got to the ball (it bounced a long way away from Saunders), he slipped and Naquin scored the winning run on an inside the park home run. A terrible way to lose, on a ball that should have been caught, but also should have seen the center fielder back up the play. Upton plays that right and it is a double.

I would have bet, any amount of money, that we were going to see more than 3 runs tonight against tonight’s starters. Francisco Liriano coming into the game with a 5.46 ERA (between the two leagues). Trevor Bauer with a 5.33 ERA in his last 5 starts. There is a lesson in there: Never never never bet on baseball.

Liriano had his best start as a Blue Jay. He went 6 innings, allowed 4 hits (all singles), 2 walks, with 7 strikeouts.

There was an unearned run in there. Jason Kipnis singled to right (a ball that Michael Saunders really should have caught). He moved to second on a passed ball, a ball that just got a little ways away from Russell Martin. Martin jumped on the ball quick and made a throw to second that would have/should have got the runner, but Devon Travis missed the catch. The ball went into right field and Kipnis went to third. He ended up scoring on Mike Napoli’s single. After that, Liriano worked his way out of the inning after that.

We also got some good work out of our pen, until Osuna gave up that home run:

• Joaquin Beniot pitched a quick clean 7th inning. He got 2 strikeouts and, surprise, didn’t give up a walk.
• Jason Grilli pitched a nice 8th, giving up a walk but pitching around it.

On offense....stop me if you’ve heard this one, we didn’t do much. Russell Martin hit a 2-run homer in the top of the 1st. That was it for scoring, and, really, we wouldn’t come close to scoring again.

We had 5 hits and 2 walks in total. And 14 strikeouts. Everyone in the lineup had at least 1 strikeout. Justin Smoak was 3 for 3 in strikeouts.

Russell Martin had 2 of our hits. Michael Saunders, Ezequiel Carrera and Ryan Goins had 1 each.

Jays of the Day are Liriano (.226 WPA), Grilli (.137), Benoit (.106), and Martin (.173) (Martin was the only batter with a WPA above 0).

Suckage: Osuna has the number, a huge number, -.808. None of the batters had the number, but I’m giving a suckage to Saunders, for missing a catchable ball and Upton for forgetting his job is to back up plays like that. Let’s give honorable suckage to Smoak for the 3 k and Travis for the 0 for 4 and the bad error.

We had 749 comments in the thread. Eric H led the way. Good job sir.