Jays lose to Orioles

Blue Jays 2 Orioles 4

Between bad luck and stupid plays, that one had it all.

R.A. Dickey wasn’t great, gave up some hard hit balls, but managed to go 6 innings, allowing just 3 earned on 7 hits, 2 walks with 2 strikeouts. He gave up a home run to Jonathan Schoop.

In the first inning, with 1 out, Dickey gave up a double to Schoop, then Manny Machado hit a fly to the wall in right field. Ezequiel Carerra got back there in time, but seemed to have trouble finding the wall and had the ball just miss his glove. It wasn’t an easy catch, but he should have made it. Kevin Pillar backed up the play nice and threw it into infield, and they had Machado caught between second and third, but a throw bounced past Josh Donaldson. A passed ball later and Machado would score.

If Ezequiel make the catch, maybe Dickey gets out of the inning without a run scoring. If the throw doesn’t get past Donaldson, only 1 run scores.

Then, the second inning, with a runner on first and a fly ball hit almost to the same spot, Carerra make the catch and the runner on first, for some reason, didn’t think he’d make the catch and was well around second, so Ezequiel doubled him off.

On offense, in the third inning, after a Carerra solo homer, the Jays load the bases with one out, but Justin Smoak and Troy Tulowitzki both strikeout. Could have been a big inning.

In the fourth inning, with no outs and Kevin Pillar on first, Devon Travis hits one over Adam Jones in center field (Jones took a terrible route to the ball), scoring Pillar, but Travis, for unknown reason, decides to try for third, and was out by 20 feet. No reason to try for third with no one and the play in front of him. He should have realized he didn’t have a hope.

After Dickey came out, Jesse Chavez pitched a quick seventh inning. Jason Grilli had some trouble in the 8th, giving up a run. He could have been helped out, Ezequiel ran in a long way on a fly to short right and had the ball glance off his glove. If you are going to run that far, you might as well make the catch.

We had a shot in the top of the ninth. After Kevin Pillar struck out, on a rather questionable terrible call, Travis singled and pinch hitting Darwin Barney walked. Russell Martin, also pinch hitting, walked to load the bases. Unfortunately, Josh Donaldson hit into a double play to end the game.

We had 7 hit and 6 walks, should have scored more than 2 runs.

Jays of the day? Martin gets a .116 WPA for the walk to load the bases in the ninth.

Suckage: Donaldson (-.344, mostly for the double play to end the game), Smoak (-.184, 0 for 4 with 3 strikeouts) and Tulowitzki (-.173 for an 0 for 4, 1 strikeout). I’m tempted to give one to Travis for the base running goof, but he had the double and then singled in the ninth, to bring the tying run to the plate.

The plate ump had a rough day. The strike zone seemed to change by the pitch. I'm surprised no one was tossed.

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