Game 36 – Worst Defeat

To give you an idea of how many extra wins the Jays could have, they just suffered their worst defeat of the season (in terms of run differential) and it came in the 13th inning. 3 times prior they had lost by 4 runs, the other 15 losses were by 3 runs or less. An extra hit here or there w/RISP and who knows what their record could be.

This game was a little too familiar to their 14 inning loss to TEX. Once again the Jays made a big late comeback to tie the game, this time in the 9th and w/o the help of an error. Once again it was the Jays who got the best scoring opportunities in extra innings but could not push across the winning run. This time it was the Rios leadoff triple in the 10th that the Jays could not cash in. When you have a runner at 3rd w/less than 2 outs, you have to put the ball in play, but the Jays couldn’t even do that. Stewart went done looking, and Stairs at least went down swinging.

Interesting to see Wheeler intentionally walk Rolen to face the LH Stairs and then less surprising was the way he pitched Wells (threw him all breaking balls in the dirt) in order to face Barajas. The decisions worked and Wheeler pitched out of the inning.

Now I get the whole you can’t get a save at home in extra innings so why leave your closer, who should be your best reliever, in the bullpen. However, I don’t think that means you have to bring him in as soon as it hits extras. Now you don’t plan for the game to go more than a couple extra innings, but why not leave Carlson in for the 10th. He threw all of 2 pitches to get 2 outs in the 9th and there was a switch hitter then 2 LH’s due up in the 10th. Carlson has pitched well enough to prove he can get the job done, and if the Jays don’t score in the bottom half they can always go to Ryan in the 11th. If they do score then you’ve just saved an extra appearance for your closer, all the more important in Ryan’s case given he is still recovering from TJ surgery.

I get why Rolen tried for the 3B in the 4th since there was 1-out and that is the best time to risk advancing from 2nd to 3rd. However, I think it was too much of a risk and he should have easily been out, but the Jays caught a break and he made it in safely. Of course, they didn’t take advantage of it anyway.

Boy, was that Grand Slam demoralizing. I was actually thinking before it that the Jays could still come back given TB had no one warming up in the bullpen and therefore were going to leave Howell in for a 3rd inning. Wouldn’t you know the Jays did threaten against Howell getting 2nd and 3rd 1 out, but did not score. But who knows how the bottom half plays out had it been a 1-run lead.

And before I forget, lost in all this was another solid outing from Jesse Litsch. Oh yeah, and the Jays went 1 for 11 w/RISP.

On to the stats: Plays like the one where Scutaro missed the tag on Upton in the rundown in the 13th are exactly why I created the DE. It is not something an official scorer will usually charge an error on, although I could be wrong I think I have seen an error charged for a missed tag, but to all observers it was a play that should have been made.

DE: Scutaro (1)