At least it wasn't the bullpen this time, Jays lose to Royals

Blue Jays 2  Royals 4

That wasn't as frustrating as yesterday, but it wasn't fun.

The good news? X-rays were negative on Melky Cabrera's shin. One of the few times that the word negative is positive.

Drew Hutchison was pretty good. 7 innings, 5 hits, 1 walk, 5 strikeouts. The bad part was 4 earned runs. 2 of them on a double down the 3rd base line that Brett Lawrie would have made the play on, if he wasn't on the bench with a sore back. Drew seemed to pitch far to well to give up 4 runs.

On our side, we had a lot of good at bats, we got Yordano Ventura out of the game after 5 innings. We had 7 hit and 6 walks in total. The problem was that we didn't have those good at bats with runners on base. Two guys, Colby Rasmus and Moises Sierra were 0 for 8 with 4 strikeouts, leaving 11 guys on base between them. Honestly, it is time for Sierra to go. And Colby...the calendar is about to turn, time to get hitting man.

The bit moment of the game, on offense, was in the 8th inning. Dioner Navarro and Juan Francisco started the inning off with singles. Then Colby and Moises struck out. Gibby should have put Jose Thole in to pinch hit for Sierra. Then after Chris Getz walked, Jose Reyes struck out on three pitches, without swinging the bat. Being fair to Jose, strike one was high and well above the strike zone. The call changed the at bat. But Reyes has to put up a battle there.

Edwin Encarnacion had a good day with the bat, 2 for 4, with a walk and a double. He gave us a chance in the 9th by getting on base with the double. His outs were hit hard too. Getz had a good game too, 2 for 3, double and a walk.

Jonathan Diaz (in the game for Melky, man we have a weak bench) cost us in the 7th. Getz doubled and Reyes walked. Diaz tried and failed to bunt them over and struck out. When  you don't hit you have to get the bunts down, not that it is easy with 98 mph fastballs coming at you.

Jays of the Day are Juan Francisco (.206 WPA, 1 for 2 with 2 walks), Getz (.200) and Edwin (.151).

Suckage: well, Hutchison had the number, -.255. Also Rasmus (-.232). Sierra (-.192), Reyes (-.164) and Navarro (-.117).

The GameThread was great fun. 1066 comments, pretty good considering the Raptors played and won, the NHL playoffs are on and, everyone's favorite spectator sport, Rob Ford was in the news too. Kraemer_17 lapped the pack with 183 comments. Great job in a losing cause.