Jays Beat Royals - Yahoo Sports

Blue Jays 4 Royals 3

The Jays are above .500 and own the last Wild Card spot.

After the first inning, I thought this was going to be a high scoring game.

The Jays got two in the first (it should have been more). Brett Bateman started the game with a single, but was quickly picked off first. George Springer had a fly out to center. But Vladimir Guerrero singled. Kirk hit into what I thought was going to be the third out, but Royals third baseman threw wide of first, and Vlad scored from first. Kirk made it to second. Nathan Lukes lined a single to left scoring Kirk. Kazuma Okamoto followed with a double giving us guys on second and third, but that’s as far as they’d get.

We thought it was going to be a great day.

But Max Scherzer had a terrible first inning. He gave up 3 hits, a walk, a hit batter, a balk, but just two runs scored. Pretty lucky really, but it was a tie game.

Max got it together after that. He went 4.2 more innings allowing just 1 more run, a John Rave (who?) home run.

We got our third run in the third inning, Nathan Lukes had a one out single and Okamoto doubled him home.

And the game winning run came in the seventh. Springer led off with a walk and a stolen base. Vlad struck out and Kirk ground out. But Lukes reached on a Bobby Witt throwing error. And Okamoto, again, singled in the run.

The bullpen did a great job again:

Mason Fluharty got the last out of the sixth and the first two outs of the seventh.
Paul Sewald (I’m still wondering why Sewald?) got the last out of the seventh.
Tyler Rogers fought through a tough eighth. He gave up singled to the first two batters, but then got a ground ball hit back to him. He turned and threw a perfect throw to second to start a big double play. And then got another ground out to end the inning.
Louis Varland had a great ninth picking up his 33rd save.

In that first inning, Vlad made a terrific play in that first inning. With runners on first and second, Vlad got a ground ball and threw to third to get the lead runner. It turned out to be big, because Max balked, moving the runners up from first and second. Had there been a runner on third, he would have scored (but then things wouldn’t go exactly the same had he taken the out at first).

We had 13 hits, but just two extra base hits, both Okamoto doubles. He had four hits. Lukes had three hits. The only Jay without a hit was Springer (but he walk and stole and scored).

Jays of the Day: Okamoto (0.32 WPA), Varland (0.21), Rogers (0.15), Lukes (0.13) and Fluharty (0.09).

Other Award: Vlad (-0.11, tho that defensive play would bring that up a bit), Bateman (-0.10, plus the pickoff), Straw (-0.10, his one hit he beat out an infield single on pure hustle), and Clement (-0.09).

Tomorrow we have a day game. 2:00 Eastern. Jays list TBD, but I thought it was to be Spencer Arrighetti, being, at least, the bulk guy. The Royals have Randy Dobnak (2-3, 2.65)

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