Yet Another Loss

Mets 3 Blue Jays 2

There’s a game that turned in a crappy top of the eighth. With a one-run lead in the eighth and Tommy Nance in to throw, a lot happened:

• Jesse Winker led off with a walk on a full count pitch (ball three looked like a strike, but it was up and on the outside corner, tough call).
• The next batter, Francisco Alvarez, bounces one towards third base. Ernie Clement came in on it and should have just held onto it. But he threw well wide of first, putting the tying run on third and winning run on second with no outs.
• Francisco (has there ever been two Franciscos hitting back-to-back in a lineup before? Likely, I guess) walked again on a full count.
• A wild pitch brought in the tying run and won us the prize of listening to rants about catchers on one knee.
• A strikeout got us our first out of the inning.
• Then, a passed ball scored the go-ahead run.
• A strikeout and a ground out ended the inning, but then it was too late.

For the record Buck Martinez had 176 wild pitches and 49 passed balls in his career.

Anyway....

The Jays scored their runs in the seventh inning. Danny Young was in to pitch, in place of Tylor Megill who allowed just one hit and two walks with nine strikeouts in his six innings. We just couldn’t hit him. In the seventh:

• Spencer Horwitz ground out.
• Davis Schneider pinch hit for Will Wagner (against the lefty), and he was hit by a pitch.
• Alejandro Kirk singled.
• Ernie Clement (pinch-hitting for Addison Barger) singled to load the bases. John put Serven in for Kirk as a pinch-runner).
• Another hit by pitch, this time Leo Jimenez, scored our first run.
• A Nathan Lukes medium fly to left, scored Serven (Kirk wouldn’t have scored on that).
• George Springer struck out to end the inning. He was robbed on a pitch that looked about eight inches off the ground that was called a strike.

Other than that inning, we had four base runners.

Our pitchers did a nice job:

• Ryan Burr opened, going two perfect innings, with three strikeouts.
• Luis Frias (after an awful first appearance for the Jays (though he had a fair bit of bad luck)) got the next four outs, with two strikeouts.
• With one out in the fourth, Ryan Yarbrough came in. I liked getting Frias out of there with a positive outing, and with a lefty coming up. Ryan gave up one hit, two walks with two strikeouts and two hit batters. He gave up a run in the fourth on a walk, hit batter and a single in his 3.2 innings.
• Nance....well you heard about. He did well enough, but the error, wild pitch and passed ball cost him.
• Erik Swanson had a nice, quick ninth.

An error by a third baseman caused us trouble for the second night in a row and cost us big.

Vladimir Guerrero fouled one off his leg and hopped down the dugout steps on the other leg, early in the game. He stayed in the game, but he didn’t look right at the plate.

Jays of the Day: Clement had the number (.172), but that error was huge, so I’m not giving him one. Let’s give them to Burr (.098) and Frias (.082).

The Other Award: Nance had the number (-.450), but he was hurt by bad defense and catching. Let’s award Springer (-.135, for a 0 for 4, 1 k) and Varsho (-.124, 0 for 4, 3 k). Let’s give one to Serven for missing on those two pitches and making me sit through the one-knee old man rant.

Tomorrow we have Chris Bassitt (9-13, 4.30) who has a 6.30 ERA since the start of July. David Peterson (9-1, 2.75) starts for the Mets.