A rare bad night from the bullpen, Jays lose
Mayza #Mayza
Phillies 5 Blue Jays 1
One of those nights. They used to say that every team wins 50 and loses 50, and it is the other 62 that count. Well, this was one of the 50 losses.
All was going well until the top of the seventh.
Trent Thronton walked the leadoff hitter, then got two strikeouts. But another walk and lefty-hitting Bryce Harper coming up got Charlie to put in Tim Mayza. The right move, Harper has trouble hitting lefties.
But Mayza was just missing against Harper and walked him, loading the bases. There was only one of the four balls that was truly a bad pitch, but he didn’t get the calls just off the plate, and Harper didn’t chase. Bases loaded. Another walk to J.T. Realmuto tied the game, then a double by Rhys Hoskins put the Phillies up by two.
In comes Jeremy Beasley, his first action with the Jays. He gave up a fly ball to the wall that Teoscar Hernandez likely should have caught, and three more runs score. A strikeout would end the inning, but we were down 5-1 by then.
Our bullpen has been so good that we can excuse one bad night. I guess.
Before that? Steven Matz was just terrific. Five innings, 4 hits, 3 walks, and 9 strikeouts with no runs. Minus an unlucky (he says, looking for a better word) third inning, he would have gone deeper into the game. But, with two out and a full count on Andrew McCutchen, Matz threw a pitch at the bottom of the zone that McCutchen swung at. But….the plate umpire didn’t call it a strike, and the first base umpire didn’t call it a swing. It was easily a swing. So the inning continues.
Matz wasn’t pleased and was less pleased when Jean Segura doubled. And then Harper walked (again, ball four was at the top of the zone but was a strike). Thankfully Realmuto ground out, or Matz may have got all Kevin Gregg on the umpire.
Offensively we had many balls hit hard, but they all seemed to find a glove.
We had 9 batted balls hit over 100 mph, and 2 of them were hits, both singles, and one an error.
Our run came on a Vladimir Guerrero home run, hit the other way (and just at 94.3 MLB). Nice to see him make good contact.
We only had 4 hits on the night. Vlad, Grichuck, and Gurriel had 2 (Lourdes hit the ball hard each time up, I think he’s turning things around).
Of note, we had 2 guys doubled off second. Early in the game, Biggio was on second, Rowdy lined one to center that I thought was going to be a hit, Buck had called a hit but was caught. Statcast had a .800 expected batting average on it. Biggio moved too far off the bag. And in the eight, with Bichette on first, Teoscar lined one into the second baseman’s glove. Bo was just a little too far off second (the play was challenged, and I still don’t know who touched second first. But then down by 4, you really should make sure before you take off from a base. That one had a .580 expected batting average.
Jays of the Day: Matz (.285) and Vlad (.187).
Suckage: Mayza (-.589), Tellez (-.162, 0 for 4), and Teoscar (-.163). Both of the latter two got dinged for the double plays.
Tomorrow we have another 7:30 start time.
We had 781 comments in the GameThread. I led us to bitter, bitter defeat.