Excellent start for Marco Estrada, Jays best Orioles

Blue Jays 5 Orioles 1

That’s the way we wanted to start this series.

Marco Estrada was great, and it’s been awhile since he was great.

Estrada went 7 inning (plus a batter), allowed just 4 hits, 1 earned, 1 walk with 4 strikeouts. He likely should have come out after 7. His 1 run allowed was a J.J. Hardy home run in the 3rd inning, which gave the Orioles a lead.

And we had a great inning of work each from Joe Biagini and Joaquin Benoit. Benoit amazes me. I keep thinking he’s just getting lucky, but strike 3 to Chris Davis was a great pitch.

Offensively, we did enough. We got home runs from Josh Donaldson (his 6th in the last 5 games, I’m so glad he’s hot again) and Jose Bautista. And RBI singles from Troy Tulowitzki and Justin Smoak and an RBI ground out from Melvin Upton (the last 2 in the 9th inning when we really wanted insurance runs).

We had 7 hits and 4 walks (with 11 strikeouts). I expected more against Wade Miley.

Jays of the Day: Estrada (.249 WPA), Biagini (.168) and Donaldson (.107).

No Suckage Jays. Upton had the low mark at -.059, for an 0 for 3 with a walk. He also missed a very catchable ball, in foul territory in left.

We had 1584 comments in the GameThreads. barraqudie led us to victory. Great job.