Blue Jays 14, White Sox 5: Party like it’s 2015!

Apr 3, 2018, 22:50 EDTUpdated: Apr 3, 2018, 22:53 EDT

It felt like one of the good old days tonight when the Jays kicked the ever-loving piss out of Chicago’s pitching. After the bats had looked largely limp in the first five games of the season, they exploded for 14 runs in a thrashing of the White Sox. This team, perhaps, is Actually Good.

Things worth mentioning

J.A. Happ got the start and was decent. Like, good-not-great. He got BABIP’d a little bit in the first few innings and then seemingly ran out of gas later on. Ultimately he went five-and-a-third innings allowing four runs on seven hits and one walk while picking up nine strikeouts. The good sign was excellent command, the bad sign was getting squared up multiple times and allowing two bombs.
The bullpen after was sorta shaky. Daddy Barnes closed the sixth inning in relief of Happ, then John Axford came in and navigated the seventh despite command issues, then Tyler Clippard came in for the eighth and allowed a homer to let Chicago come within two runs.
But it was okay because the bats went fuckin’ buckwild with a seven-run eighth inning. Everyone in the lineup got in on the action in the eighth, as Gift Ngoepe walked, Curtis Granderson doubled, Josh Donaldson walked, Justin Smoak doubled (the defensive attempt on this was soooo funny), Yangervis Solarte was intentionally walked, Randal Grichuk hit a sac fly, Kendrys Morales singled, Kevin Pillar doubled, and it came all the way back around to Luke Maile who doubled. Hell yeah. I can’t remember the last time we got to witness an offensive outburst like that.
There were a lot of good offensive performances to go around. Josh Donaldson hit some bullets and looked good on the field, so the dead arm thing looks like it can be put to rest. Luke Maile squared up on a couple of balls and looks waaaay better at the plate this year than last. Aledmys Diaz continued to scorch the ball with three hits including a bomb, but he left the game due to back spasms after hurting himself taking a home run chop.