Guardians 3 Blue Jays 5
It seemed like the Kazuma Okamoto show. He was 2 for 3 with a homer, walk, 2 RBI and a number of nice plays at third. The home run, like yesterday’s was crushed to dead center, 425 feet, 108.9 mph. Just a terrific day for him.
But Kevin Gausman was pretty good too. 6.2 innings, 6 hits, 2 earned, just 3 strikeouts, but no walks. Few things hit hard off him. He came out at 91 pitches, after giving up a home run and a hard hit line drive out. He likely could have stayed, but after a couple
of hard hit balls, and a lefty coming up, I was good with the switch.
Mason Fluharty got the third out.
Tyler Rogers had a quick eighth, with the help of a couple of nice plays by Okamoto, He gets such weak contact that infielders are going to have to make good plays for him.
Louis Varland, on the other hand, didn’t have a quick ninth. It went fly out, single, single, double (run scored, Varsho almost made a great catch, but had it go off his glove), walk (bases loaded), strikeout (on eight pitches), and strikeout (on five pitches). Just your routine 30 pitch save.
Offensively? Well, they did enough. I’d have preferred more than enough, but that’s me. 10 hits, and 3 walks, it would have nice to have more than 5 runs.
We scored:
- One in the fourth: Okamoto homered.
- Three in the sixth: Vlad singled and stole second. He was pretty easily safe, running on an 3-0 pitch. Okamoto singled putting runners on the corners. Jesús Sánchez struck out. Daulton Varsho singled, he had some tough at bats, but bounce that through the infield (though it could have been called an error on the second baseman, who looked like he was settling up up throw home and cut down the run. Varsho stole second. Davis Schneider struck out. Andrés Giménez doubled in two on a fly ball to left that likely should have been caught, but George Valera spent the game showing what it would be like to have me playing left field.
- One in the seventh: Straw and Clement singled. Vlad walked. Okomoto walked bringing in a run. But then Sánchez popped out to left, to shallow to score Clement. Varsho hit into a 3-2 force. And Schneider struck out. They should have scored more
Straw, Clement and Okamoto had two hits each. Eloy Jiménez and Sánchez split an 0 for 4 down the middle, and Schneider was 0 for 3 with a walk. He had some bad at bats. Clement had a couple of bad at bats, but also had two hits, so I guess we’ll forgive. But he is so willing to chase a foot off the plate.
Jays of the Day: Okomoto (.22 WPA), Gausman (.20). Varsho deserves an honourable mention.
Other Award: Schneider (-.09) and Sánchez (-.09) both who struck out at the worst times.
Tomorrow’s game is a 1:30 start time. Patrick Corbin (3.68 ERA) vs. Slade Cecconi (6.20). Let’s get some runs off him.
