Orioles 7 Blue Jays 3
Let’s start with the good stuff:
- After the first two batters (a walk and a home run) Bowden Francis was very good. He went 5 innings, allowed just 3 hits, 2 earned (see above), 1 walk with 7 strikeouts. He threw 81 pitches, which seems to be the top end of his limit.
- Genesis Cabrera pitched a good inning, perfect with 2 strikeouts.
- Yerry Rodriguez also threw a clean inning with 1 strikeout.
- Leo Jiménez had three hits, all hard-hit doubles. Good hard contact on each. Bo better watch out.
- Alejandro Kirk was 2 for 3, with a walk. He just missed out on a double in his first at bat as well, having it land just barely foul. He is hitting .251 now.
- Vlad kept his hitting streak going. 19 games now. He almost had a run-scoring double in the seventh but for a great catch by Anthony Santander. Hit right to the wall, caught about 7 feet up the wall.
- We had 10 hits, but Jiménez had all the extra-base hits. Schneider and Horwitz (he had a sac fly) were the only starters to go 0 for. Davis is slumping hard.
The bad stuff:
- The bullpen gave up 5 runs in 4 innings. Ryan Burr gave up 2 hits, including a home run, and 2 earned. Ryan Yarbrough gave up 3 earned with another home run. One of his earned runs came after he left the game when Erik Swanson gave up a single to the first batter he faced.
- And we made three errors. Two of them were by Vlad at third. One throwing, one fielding. Both because of poor footwork. Burr had the other on a pickoff try to second, throwing well wide of the bag. I’m not a fan of pickoff plays at second. But then Burr gave up a home run to the next batter, so the error didn’t really hurt. And some non-error errors. Horwitz had two foul popups that he didn’t get to, one allowed the hitter to homer on the next pitch. Springer had a ball bounce over his head, turning a single into a double.
The team has a lot of work to do to build a decent pen for next season.
Jay of the Day: Jiménez (.139 WPA). Honourable mention goes to Cabrera and Francis.
The Other Award: Burr (-.352), Yarbrough (-.124), Horwitz (-.110, plus the fielding issues), and Schneider (-.105).
The Orioles had three home runs, two by Santander and one by Holliday.
Tomorrow, we have Kevin Gausman (9-8, 4.56) vs. Dean Kremer (4-8, 4.39).