Mariners A lot Blue Jays A few
That wasn’t the game we were hoping for. It was rather depressing.
Trey Yesavage had a strike that was called a ball, and it seemed to throw him for a bit, and he gave up a three-run homer to Julio Rodriguez in the first inning.
He righted himself for a couple of innings. Then he started off the fifth with an infield single (plus a throwing error on Andres Gimenez, who made a nice grab on the ball, spun and threw well wide of first. I don’t think he was getting out anyway.
The ball hit a Mariner sitting on the top step of the dugout. John Schneider argued that he was sitting on the field of play and that the Mariners shouldn’t get an extra base on the throw. Personally, I thought that was silly, players always sit there and it is further back than the wall (fence?) that is in front of the dugout. An intentional walk to Cal Raliegh was the end of his day.
Louis Varland came in. He struck out Julio Rodriguez, but then gave up a three-run homer to Jorge Polanco. He stuck out the next two batters, but it didn’t seem to matter. We gave up one more in the sixth, off Mason Fluharty. And three more in the seventh, two off of Braydon Fisher (a Josh Naylor home run, first homer by a Canadian off the Jays in the playoffs) and one off Yariel Rodriguez, who walked three in a row to load the bases, before leaving. Chris Bassitt gave up a sac fly, bringnig in the run, and got a strikeout to end the inning.
Basssitt gave us 1.2 innings without allowing a run.
Eric Lauer pitched the ninth.
After the three runs in the first two innings, the Jays’ offense did nothing (well, a hit in the sixth and a walk in the seventh). We had a total of six hits and Lukes had three of them.
The offense that was so good against the Yankees, hasn’t shown up against the Mariners and they are going to have to get going.
Beyond that, Daulton Varsho had a couple of misadventures in the outfield, which seemed out of character for him. But then there has been a number of things that seemed out of character for the Jays.
Amazingly enough, there was a Jay of the Day: Nathan Lukes (.232 WPA) who had three of our six hits, and one of our two RBI.
The Other Award? Yesavage (-.202, slightly unfair, but life isn’t fair and neither is baseball), Varland (-.198), Barger (-.117, for an 0 for 4) and Vlad (-.089, 0 for 3 and a walk).
We had other 0 fors: Varsho (0 for 4), Schneider (0 for 3, walk) and Gimenez (0 for 2, walk).
Game three is in Seattle on Wednesday. Shane Bieber vs. George Kirby. Hopefully the bats will come back to life.
