A's 5 Blue Jays 1
That was painful.
Game tied, at home, in the bottom of the 9th. The right move was to bring in Casey Janssen. It didn't work. Casey gave up 4 hits and 4 runs. I'm glad to have a manager that will use his closer in non-save spots.
J.A. Happ was terrific. He gave up a lead off home run in the first, after that he went 7 scoreless innings, allowing just 2 more hits and 2 walks, with 6 strikeouts. He deserved better.
Once against the Jays couldn't score. We finally scored the tying run in the 8th. A 1-out single by Jose Reyes, followed by a hit and run single from Maicer Izturis, that worked perfectly, a ground ball right at short, but the shortstop moved to cover the bag. Then Jose Bautista hit a hard shot that glanced of third baseman Alberto Callaspo's glove and we were tied for a moment. Edwin Encarnacion followed with a line drive that second baseman Eric Sogard caught, then stepped on 2nd to double off Maicer. We seem to get doubled off a lot.
Other than the 8th, we did nothing with the bat. In total 7 hits and 3 walks. 2 hits for Brett Lawrie. 1 each for Reyes, Izturis, Encarnacion, Adam Lind and Emilio Bonifacio. All singles. Didn't we get some extra base hits earlier in the season?
Other than the 8th inning, we only had 2 base runners make it to second base. Once on a Brett Lawrie sac bunt. A stupid sac bunt because J.P. Arencibia and Rajai Davis follow him in the batting order and they are both in slumps. Neither one has a hit in the past week. Between them they have 3 hits this month, all by Rajai, all the same game. I'm guessing that Brett decided to bunt on his own. I hate that. The manager should be making the strategy decisions.
Jays of the Day are Happ (.269 WPA), Bautista (.147, all on Callaspo's error) and Izturis (.099, from the hit and run single).
Suckage: Janssen (-.483), Davis (-.137), Encarnacion (-.117) and Arencibia (-.097).
Another day, another loss. Another game we should have won. Games are getting harder and harder to watch.
We start a series with the Red Sox tomorrow.
Forgot to add, Happ is going on the bereavement list, to attend his grandfather's funeral. Todd Redmond is being called up to take his roster spot and to make tomorrow's start. Sort of working the system a bit.