Baseball is hard: Jays lose 7-2

Home opener tomorrow!

The Blue Jays went down 7-2 in a bit of a stinker of a game. Brandon Morrow got the start and struggled in the early going, only managing to go five innings, albeit in his first start of the year, and his first start since May 28 of last year due to a season-ending nerve injury in his forearm.

Source: FanGraphs

Already down 1-0 going in to the third inning, the Rays scored three runs via four straight hits and a double play. A David DeJesus triple to start the inning, followed by a Desmond Jennings double to score DeJesus, a Ben Zobrist single to score Jennings, then an Evan Longoria single and a James Loney double play grounder scored Zobrist would be pretty much all the Rays needed. Exiting when you read about it, EH??

The Jays managed to score two runs the next half-inning via a Dioner Navarro sac fly and Brett Lawrie infield single, but that's as much as the Jays offence would be able to produce. Chris Archer, fresh off his newly signed six year, $25.5MM deal, struck out seven Blue Jays through six innings, only allowing four hits, two walks, and just those two runs in the top of the fourth. That's not how you get ants, Lana.

Evan Longoria unloaded a monster home run in the bottom of the seventh off of Esmil Rogers.

Rogers had thrown the exact same pitch just before, that Longoria barely missed.

One additional note - Colby Rasmus seems to be struggling to make contact early on this year. Last year too, I guess - he's a guy who is going to swing and swing a lot and also miss on a lot of those swings. Check Nick Ashbourne's piece on Rasmus and high heat.

The Rays, however, seemed to have a plan of attack that involved off-speed stuff down low. Rasmus missed a lot (from the past three games).

Jays of the day uhh... Maicer Izturis went 2-3 with a walk, good for a 0.89 WPA.

Quite a few lousy games from players: Morrow (-.192), Cabrera (-0.89 -.089), Rasmus (-0.96 -.096), and Goins (-0.84 -.094).

Not too fun a game. Ah well! The Jays are back home Fiday and Dustin freakin' McGowan gets his first start since SEPTEMBER 2011!

For those heading to the game Friday, be safe, don't overdrink, and watch out for folks intending to do just that.

Here's to baseball, and to summer.

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