Blue Jays 4 A’s 2
We got off to an early lead today; Josh Smith and Kazuma Okamoto each homered in the second inning.
And we got two more in the sixth. We got singles from Nathan Lukes, Vladimir Guerrero and Alejandro Kirk to start the inning. Lukes scored on the Kirk single. And Vlad went first to third. He scared me when he did it, but he slowed a second, and then the throw came in to second, so he took off to third. Good heads-up running. It worked out because he was able to score on Josh Smith’s
4-3 double play.
There was some strangeness after that. Okamoto, in his at-bat, put his hand towards his helmet and plate umpire Bill Miller thought he was asking for a challenge. He seemed to say he wasn’t, but it did cost us when it was a strike. Next up, Andrés Giménez asked for a challenge and was wrong, using up our last challenge. Giménez should have been smarter; no need to waste our last challenge on a 1-0 count.
We got a very good outing from José Soriano. Seven innings, six hits, two earned runs (on solo homers), one walk and three strikeouts.
And Spencer Miles got a two-inning save (just a few days after they said they were going to limit his innings). His second save of the season. He threw two clean innings with three strikeouts. Pretty amazing.
We had some great defence today:
- The first out of the second inning was a ball hit hard down the third-base line; Okamoto made a nice pickup behind the bag and made a good one-hop throw to Vlad.
- Giménez got the last two outs of that inning, picking up the ball at short, beating the runner to the bag and then throwing to first while jumping over the runner.
- Vlad got the last out of the first, getting the ball deep behind first and throwing from foul territory to José Soriano covering first.
- Giménez also made a nice play in the fourth, picking up a grounder and making a spin and throw to first.
- Okamoto had another nice play in the seventh: a hard grounder down the line, pick up, and a perfect throw.
- Vlad grabbed a line drive in the ninth.
We had 11 hits and 2 home runs, so we really should have had more than 4 runs. Vlad, Smith and Okamoto had two hits each. The only starter without a hit was Ernie Clement.
Jays of the Day: Soriano (0.26 WPA) and Miles (0.21). Honourary mention to Smith and Okamoto.
No one gets the Other Award. The low mark was Sanchez at -0.07.
Tomorrow, we have everyone’s favourite thing, a bullpen game. And it is an afternoon game. 3:00 Eastern. The A’s are starting Brady Basso (4.32 ERA on the season), who hasn’t gone more than 3 innings this season, so it’s a bullpen day on their side too.
