Blue Jays 1 Braves 3
There have been too many of these games this year. Good pitching, no offense.
Kevin Gausman didn’t start great. He gave up a couple of singles in the first but was helped out by a great throw by Alejandro Kirk to catch Michael Harris. I like many things about Kirk’s defense, but his throwing has surprised me this year.
Gausman had a lot of trouble in the second inning. It started with a walk, single, and RBI single (nothing hit all that hard). Then, there was a strikeout, RBI single, and RBI ground out. Then, two walks, and it looked like Gausman was a hit away from coming out of the game early, but a long fly out to left ended the inning (357 feet, a few more feet it would have been a grand slam).
Gausman only allowed one more hit before coming out after six innings.
We got a good inning of work out of Tommy Nance and Erik Swanson, but since we didn’t do anything on offence, it didn’t matter.
Kirk had an unfair error called on him for getting a ball caught between his mask and his neck. You get an error if you get hit in the neck (and it lodges in the equipment). He also had a rare passed ball.
We had just seven hits. Nathan Lukes had two. Springer, Vlad, Kirk, Clement and Joey Loperfido (pinch-hitting in the ninth) each had one. As so often seems to happen, we were short on extra-base hits. Loperfido’s double was out only one, and that came because right fielder Eli White dove for the ball and had it hit his glove, but he couldn’t hang onto it.
We got our run in the third. Lukes singled and went to second on a fielding error by SS Orlando Arcia on a Springer ground ball. A force-out put runners on the corners, and Lukes scored on Vlad’s ground out.
We had a chance in the sixth. Vlad and Kirk started the inning with singles, but Max Fried struck out Clement, Will Wagner and Leo Jimenez.
And we had two on again in the ninth. Loperfido and Lukes had two-out hits, but Springer struck out to end the game.
Fried is a good left-handed pitcher; we’ve had trouble with lefties this year.
No Jays of the Day today. The high mark was Loperfido’s .027, all on the pinch-hit double.
The Other Award: Wagner (-.159 for a 0 for 4, 2 k) and Schneider (-.096. for a 0 for 3, though he hit a nice line drive that Arcia made a terrific jumping catch on).
Tomorrow, we have a rare weekend night game. 7:20 Eastern start. Jose Berrios (14-9, 3.59) vs. Spencer Schwellenbach (5-6, 3.69).