Blue Jays 5 A’s 6
I wanted to title this ‘Bad Pitching, Defense and Hitting Leads to a Loss’ but that’s too many words.
A bad moment on defense, in the first inning, turned out to be very costly. Dylan Cease was having a rough time in the first. A walk to Henry Bolte, who followed that with a steal. Then a ground rule double to score the first run of the game. A single gave the A’s runners on the corners, with two out. Carlos Cortes went to steal second, Alejandro Kirk threw to second, and the runner on third came home. Ernie Clement threw back home in plenty of time to get the runner, but the runner stopped and turned around. Kirk chased him, and the runner seemed to be giving up, but Kirk threw to Kazuma Okamoto, and it wasn’t a good throw, went off Okamoto’s glove and the runner scored. 2-0 after half an inning. Just a bad play. Just chasing him back to third would have been fine.
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Kirk homered in the bottom of the inning, making up for the mistake.
But the A’s got two more in the third. Bolte again walked and stole season (maybe next year, Cease could come up with a way to hold runners?). After a popup, Bolte stole third. Next batter, Zack Gelof hit a ground ball to third, Okamoto came home but the throw was too late. Then Gelof steal second and third and a single scored him. 4-1 A’s.
A’s got one more in the fifth, a Bolte home run. 5-1 and it looked really bad.
It wasn’t Cease’s night, 5 innings, 5 runs, 4 earned, 2 walks, 6 strikeouts. Cutting down that run at the plate would have make it look better (and maybe he wouldn’t have had the same troubles in the third).
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But the Jays got three runs in the seventh. Okamoto started the inning with a massive home run (making up for his share of the mistake in the first), 109.8 mph, 423 feet. Nathan Lukes and Clement each singled. Giménez doubled, bringing in one more. And Josh Smith, pinch hitting, hit a sac fly. 5-4, A’s.
With Giménez on second, the A’s pitcher Luis Medina ‘disengaged’ twice, meaning if he did again (and didn’t get the out) Giménez would be given third.
But, Andrés took off for third, before Medina came home and Medina threw to third for an easy out. Bad play by Giménez, since he was already in scoring position with just one out.
In the eighth, with two out, Kirk singled and Okamoto walked, but Lukes (against a lefty) ground out. We didn’t have right-handed bats on the bench (well, Brandon Valenzuela, a switch-hitter, but they weren’t going to pinch hit with him).
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Down by a run in the top of the ninth, Giménez hit a game tying home run. We couldn’t get another run.
The comeback was rather amazing, considering our offense looked terrible for the first six innings.
Tie game going into the bottom of the inning and Louis Varland in to pitch. Spoiler….he wasn’t sharp (neither was plate umpire Chad Fairchild, though it really didn’t help that we wasted our challenges early).
Louis gave up a single to Max Muncy and a walk to Donovan Walton. Alika Williams put down a very good bunt, but Vlad made an amazing play, throwing to third getting the lead runner. No other first baseman make that play. A line out got us to two outs. Then a walk to Bolte loaded the bases.
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Then Jeff McNeil hit an extremely soft ground ball (51.9 mph) that Giménez made a great attempt on, but his throw to first was just a bit late. They talk about it being a game of inches, and it was tonight.
The good news? The Guardians also lost, so we are still just 1 game back of the last Wild Card spot.
Bad news, we could be holding that spot, right now, with some better defense/pitching.
Jay of the Day: Giménez (0.36 WPA, though the bad base running would bring that down a bit) and Okamoto (0.12) had the number too, but I’m not giving him it, because not catching Kirk’s throw and though it wasn’t terrible, a slightly better throw home in the third inning would have saved what turned out to be a very important run).
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Other Award: Varland (-0.35, he’s been so good, and he was hurt by a plate umpire with an interesting view of the zone, tomorrows umpire scorecard will be something to look at, but we needed him to be better today), Cease (-0.23, also could have been helped by some defense, two of the runs against him weren’t his fault), Springer (-0.18, for an 0 for 5, 2 k. He had a rough day), Smith (-0.12, kind of unfair, as he drove in a run as pinch hitter), and Clement (-0.09, 1 for 4).
We had 9 hits, they had 6. But then they had 5 steals, a home run and grouped their hits.
Tomorrow, well they have to shake this one off, and win tomorrow. It is slightly earlier, 9:40 start Eastern start time. José Soriano (11-7, 3.52) vs. Jack Perkins (3-10, 6.50)
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