Blue Jay 5 Padres 3
A three-game win streak. A few days ago that would have seemed impossible.
We owe this one to Kazuma Okamoto, who hit a three-run home run in the fifth. In that fifth inning, Myles Straw started it with a bunt single (very nicely done Straw). Jonatan Clase flied out. Then Ernie Clement singled, Vladimir Guerrero singled (well, he rolled a ball out towards third that died in the grass, but an RBI is an RBI). Then Okamoto hit one 377 feet to left center, 107.6 mph. That homer tied
Shohei Ohtani’s record for home runs for a Japanese born rookie with 22. He has some time left to break the record.
We scored one in the fourth. Vlad walked to lead off the inning. After a Okamoto strikeout, George Springer singled and Alejandro Kirk doubled. With one out and runners on second and third, we should have scored more than the one run, but Daulton Varsho ground out hard to first and Luis Urias ground out to third (not so hard).
We had nine hits and three walks, so more runs would have been nice. Clement and Straw had two hits each. Varsho and Urias had the 0 fors.
Shane Bieber had a rough start to the game. He gave up an one out walk and a Xander Bogaerts home run. Another walk and single that inning had us worried that it was going to be a long game.
But after that first inning, Bieber was better (not great, but better). He came out of the game after a two-out single in the fourth. Mason Fluharty got the third out of the inning. Bieber finished with six hits, three walks, four strikeouts and two earned in his 4.2 innings.
Chad Dallas, Jeff Hoffman, Tyler Rogers all pitched a scoreless inning. Louis Varland got the first two out and then gave up three straight singles, just to test our blood pressure (and push his ERA above 1). But, with the tying run on base, he got Xander Bogaerts to ground out to third. Okamoto had a busy day on defense too. Save #19 for Varland. Varland threw 26 pitches getting that save.
Jays of the Day: Okamoto (0.24 WPA), Kirk (0.15), and Clement (0.10).
Other Award: Varsho (-0.12) and Urias (0.11).
Tomorrow we have another late start, 8:40 Eastern. Trey Yesavage (4-4, 3.31) vs. Walker Buehler (5-5, 5.07).
Other news: Canadian Tristan Peters hit for the cycle for the White Sox. And he was miced up. Just the second Canadian ever to hit for the cycle.
