Walk-off Homer by Edwin Encarnacion

Brewers 4 Blue Jays 7 Walk-off win.

This game deserves a longer recap, we'll revisit it later. The good news is that Edwin Encarnacion hit a game winning home run in the bottom of the 9th. 2-on, 2-outs, in the bottom of the 9th, Edwin up. I was sure they would pitch around him, even to load the bases, but they didn't and Edwin hit the ball a mile.

There was a ton of stuff that went on in that game:

• Earlier in the 9th, with Jose Reyes on second and Melky Cabrera (who was intentionally walked, I dislike the intentional walk, but, in this case, I wouldn't have done it because it made it far more likely that Edwin would come up in the inning, I'd much rather pitch to Melky than Edwin), Anthony Gose tried to bunt, bunts it back to the pitcher, who goes to third, for the easy force out. I dislike bunting, especially with runners at first and second. The Brewers were crashing the plate, Gose had almost nowhere to put the ball down and get a successful bunt. And, of course, with them crashing the plate, slapping a ball some where fair, has so much more of a chance to work. It didn't help that Darin Mastroianni struck out after. Thankfully Edwin homered.
• Another amazing thing, when Anthony came to the plate, in the 9th, the Brewers took their lefty reliever out to bring in a right-hander. Seemed a silly move.
• In the 7th, we had runners at first and second and Mastroianni up. He bunted one right off the plate, catcher jumped out in front of him and threw to third, getting the out and then they went to first, to get the out. Darin didn't get out of the box quick, I think he felt the ball was foul, and I don't think he wanted to run into the catcher. I think he would have been out easy anyway. It was a quick play. Mostly it was a terrible bunt by Darin. Again, it was tough, the Brewers were crashing the plate, but he had to do better with that bunt. I hate bunting, for some reason people seem to think it always works.
• After the failed bunt, Jose Bautista was on second and, with two outs, Gibby pulled him for Gose to pinch run. I think in part because he didn't want Bautista to have to try to run full out. But, Jose's spot in the order would come up in the ninth. Gibby is closer to the players....I'm sure they didn't want Jose to hurt himself again trying to score.
• The strike zone was terrible. We had a number of pitches high out of the strike zone called against us. And some wide ones.
• J.A. Happ pitched a very good game. He had one bad inning. With a bit of fielding that inning would have been better. He gave up a lead off ground ball single, that bounced just over him. He should have made the play, but then, he was hit in the head last year. I'm sure self preservation is his first thought. After a ground rule double, there was a Ryan Braun hit to the track that Colby Rasmus got to, but had the ball go off his glove for a triple. He should have caught it. As Zaun said, the lack of a real warning track likely worked against Colby. He was worried about the wall while he wasn't close. If he could feel the track he would have known it was further away and, likely, would have made the catch.
• Happ went 7 innigns, allowed 6 hits, 4 earned (I thought Colby's non-catch should have been an error, so some of those runs should/could be unearned). 0 walks (Happ went seven without a walk? wow) with 4 strikeouts.
• Aaron Loup and Casey Janssen pitched a scoreless inning each. Casey gets the win.
• Both managers were thrown out of the game. Roenicke for arguing that Steve Tolleson swung at a pitch that hit him (he didn't). And Gibby for arguing after a replay showed Tolleson was out trying to go to second on a wild pitch. Tolleson was out, but Gibby was frustraited by the lousy strike zone and by a replay that clearly showed Munenori Kawasaki was safe, but wasn't overturned by the donuts in New York.
• Our other runs were scored: on a first inning Bautista home run, a 3rd inning Adam Lind RBI double and a 4th inning Juan Francisco 2-run homer (on a breaking ball!).

There is more, but I have to do real work at some point today.

Jays of the Day are Edwin (.361 WPA), Francisco (.253),  Melky (.126), Reyes (.120), Janssen (.143), Loup (.110) and Lind (.092).  I'm giving honorable mention to Happ....he did a great job today.

Suckage? Mastroianni (-.260, on that terrible bunt and the 9th inning strikeout), Gose (-.108 for the failed bunt), Rasmus (-.122 for an 0 for 3). Kawasaki also had the number, -.117, but some of that came on the single that was called an out, so I'm not giving him one.

Source: FanGraphs We had 1225 comments in the GameThread, pretty good for a weekday day game. T-Ball Gritted out the win. Great job.