Astros 2 Blue Jays 4
We really should have scored more.
It is funny how that line just types itself at the top of recaps.
But we are back at .500, and, amazingly, hold the third Wild Card spot.
Dylan Cease had a nice night. 5.2 innings, 3 hits, 2 earned, 4 walks and 8 strikeouts. He had a tough first inning, single, walk, strikeout, single, walk and finally double play. All that added up to just 1 run.
Then he got the next 13 batters out. Cease had some trouble again in the sixth. With 1 out, he handed
out 2 walks. After a line out (thanks for catching it, Jesús Sánchez. He never fills me with confidence in the outfield). After a visit from John Schneider, Jose Altuve hit a single (just cleared the infielders, but not hit hard enough to reach the outfielders). After that, Cease came out of the game. Unfortunately, that run cost Cease a W.
Dylan threw 110 pitches, which is a lot these days.
Braydon Fisher got the last out of the inning. And pitched a perfect seventh. Nice work, Braydon.
Tyler Rogers gave up a pair of singled to start the eighth, but then got a double play (very nicely turned, Ernie Clement to Andrés Giménez to Vladimir Guerrero. After a walk, another ground out ended the inning.
And Louis Varland, despite a leadoff walk, picked up his 16th save. Helped out by another nice double play, former Jay, Joey Loperfido ground to Giménez, who threw to Clement, who turned it to Vlad. A strikeout ended the game.
Offensively, we had 11 hits and 5 walks, which should have added up to more than 4 runs.
- In the first: With 2 outs, Vlad and Kirk had singles, but no runs scored.
- In the second: Kazuma Okamoto led off with a home run. Then, with two outs, Giménez was hit by pitch and George Springer singled…..but Nathan Lukes struck out to end the inning.
- In the third: With two outs, we loaded the bases with a pair of walks and a hit batter, but didn’t score.
- In the fourth: A Giménez single, a Springer walk and a Lukes sac bunt, that the Astros decided not to accept, allowing Nathan to reach on error, loaded the bases with no outs. Finally we were going to have our big inning. Vlad hit a sac fly, ok, starting with a run, no worries (with the worst throw from the outfield that we’ve seen all year, from Yordan Alvarez). A Kirk fly out (way too short to score a run. It was a rough at bat, swinging at the first pitch that was well outside and low, and then at another pitch off the plate for the fly out). And Daulton Varsho also flied out. Oh well, we were up 2-1.
- In the fifth: A one-out walk (Sánchez) and single (Clement) were wasted with a Giménez double play ball.
- In the sixth….we had our first three up, three down inning. Reliever Enyel De Los Santos looked terrific.
- In the seventh: With one out, Varsho singled and Okamoton doubled him to third. A Myles Straw sac fly scored our third run. Then Clement walked (his second this month!). But Giménez struck out to end it.
- In the eighth: Singles from Springer, Lukes, and Vlad loaded the bases. Kirk hit a sac fly to give us a 2-run lead. But, yet another double play ball ended the inning.
Springer, Vlad and Okamoto (with his 17th home run) had two hits each. Every starter reached base at least once. Sanchez was the only starter not to get a hit, but he walked and was hit by pitch.
Jays of the Day: Okamoto (0.24), Fisher (0.16) and Rogers (0.12) had the number. Let’s give an honorable mention to Varland for the save.
No one had the number for the other award. Kirk had the low mark at -0.08.
Tomorrow we have a 4:00 start time. I don’t understand why. It isn’t a travel day, the Astros are still here on Wednesday. Shane Bieber gets his first start of the season. Peter Lambert (6-4, 3.23) starts for the Astros. The Recap will likely be late, as I’ve got the MS Bike Ride this weekend and I have to get some riding in (if we can do without rain for a day) before hand. I plan to
