Orioles 7 Jays 4
This one couldn’t have gone much worse.
Dylan Beavers homered on the second pitch of the game.
Then, in the bottom of the first, the Jays had two on and one out, and Vladimir Guerrero was picked off first—just bad baseball. With a runner on second, he wasn’t going anywhere. It looked like the Orioles put a play on: pitch low and outside to the right-handed-hitting Alejandro Kirk and catch Samuel Basallo throws straight to first. Vlad was out, and it wasn’t close.
The second inning was even worse. The Orioles started the inning with four straight singles (2-0). Then a double (4-0). And another single (6-0). After that, Max Scherzer got the next 12 outs without giving up a hit. Barn doors and horse.
Max Scherzer ended up going 5 innings, allowing 7 hits, 6 earned runs, 1 walk and 3 strikeouts. The only good thing was he ate 5 innings.
The Jays got a run in the fourth, a Kazuma Okamoto home run (his 31st of the season).
One more in the sixth: Nathan Lukes led off with a single, Okamoto doubled. And Andrés Giménez drove in the run with a groundout.
And two more in the ninth. With two outs, Ernie Clement doubled, and Brett Bateman homered 7-4 after that. We got singles from George Springer and Vlad, to bring the tying run to the plate. But Kirk ground out to end the game.
That, and a Guardians win, puts the Jays two games back of the last Wild Card spot.
We had 10 hits. Bateman had 3, including the home run. Springer and Okamoto (with a home run) had 2 each. Kirk, Smith and Giménez had 0 fors.
Ricky Tiedemann, Braydon Fisher (giving up a run), Paul Sewald and Brendon Little each pitched an inning of relief.
Jay of the Day: Let’s give it to Okamoto (0.08 WPA, for a 2 for 4, home run).
Other Award: Scherzer (-0.34), and let’s give one to Vlad (-0.04 plus the base-running mistake.
Tomorrow we have Kyle Bradish (7-13, 3.91) vs. Spencer Miles (as opener) and Spencer Arrighetti (as bulk guy).
We still aren’t at the ‘have to run the table’ point, but it is getting closer.
On the upside, we had a very nice supper for my middle son’s birthday. All three of our boys came out, and it was a very nice evening.
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