Game Threat: Salvaging The Series, Blue Jays (51-42) vs Athletics (40-51)
By Cam Lewis
7 years agoWhat I wrote after Friday’s loss can pretty much be directly applied to yesterday’s game, too. The A’s powered their way to a win via the home run, the Jays offence couldn’t cash in on their opportunities, and now, thanks largely to their terrible 9-17 record in one-run games, they’re four games behind the Orioles for the American League East lead.
Yesterday
Like I said, yesterday’s game was much like the one on Friday. Not so much in the way it was played or the way it things went down, necessarily. But in the way that it was frustrating and shitty.
The Jays jumped out to an early lead yesterday afternoon off of Sonny Gray, as Josh Thole (yeah, Josh fuckin’ Thole!) doubled in two runs. But immediately after that, R.A. Dickey gave the A’s everything back and more by allowing Khris Davis and Ryon Healy and their improperly spelled first names to club a pair of homers.
From there, it was a solo home run game, as Edwin Encarnacion hammered his 24th bomb of the season in the top of the third, then Davis, just because the Jays have difficulties with people named Chris Davis regardless of now it’s spelled, hit a homer in the sixth inning to give Oakland back the two-run lead. Justin Smoak brought them back to within one in the ninth inning, but World Series Champion Ryan Madson closed the door to preserve the win.
Dickey, aside from the one inning in which he allowed four earned runs on two home runs, was pretty decent. He threw six innings, allowing five hits while walking five and striking out four. The bats mustered seven hits and four walks, but outside of that Thole double and a couple of solo home runs, it was the same story as it was in the second half of Friday’s game, as 12 runners were stranded overall.
Shitty and frustrating!
Today
The Jays will try to salvage a win in what has been a pretty shitty series to kick off the second half today against soon-to-be-Blue-Jay current Oakland Athletic trade piece Rich Hill. Hill, seemingly completely out of the blue, has become an ace this season, posting a 2.25 earned run average while limiting opposing batters to 6.5 hits per nine innings while striking out 10.7 per nine. He throws a whole bunch of strikes, a lot of them being ones that batters don’t swing at, and should more than likely prove to be Toronto’s toughest test of the series, unless (ideally) he struggles to find his grip, as he was scratched from his start Friday with a blister.
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