Game 43 – Mighty Joe

Great to see Mighty Joe Inglett coming up w/the big hit in extras to put TOR ahead. With that hit and the following out by Wilkerson, it left the Jays 2 for 11 w/RISP. Not exactly helping your pitchers out. Of course the Twins were not any better going 1 for 8.

Despite not a great start from McGowan he did battle himself through 5 while only giving up 2 runs on 2 hits. The problem was he walked 5 and hit a batter. The bullpen however came in and shut down the Twins the rest of the way only giving up 5 hits over 6. Benitez is the one guy I don’t have faith in coming out of the bullpen, but he looked good against the 4 RH’s he faced.

Mench’s attempt at bunting in the 11th shows what can happen when you try to bunt w/a guy who doesn’t practice it. The only practice most guys get is the one mandatory bunt they have to lay down when they start BP. The situation did call for a bunt since it was extra innings and you only need to play for 1 run, but its one of the reasons I’m not a fan of bunting often, too many players don’t know how to properly bunt.

I hate to see a CDN struggle, which is why I would have rather not seen Crain come out of the Twins bullpen. He has looked a little shaky in this series and seems to be falling down the pecking order in the Twins bullpen. He may be another clear example of how inconsistent relievers can be from year to year. They seem to be the one position that you can’t always go on their track record.

The Jays got a big boost gunning down 2 runners at the plate. Harris was thrown out on a well executed relay and with 2-out you have to take that gamble. However, I don’t know what Kubel was thinking running through the stop sign and trying to score from 1st on the single to shallow left that Scutaro retrieved and easily threw him out. Even w/2 out you don’t take that big a risk, hence the stop sign from the 3rd base coach.

I was kind of surprised Mauer was used to PH for Everett and Redmond leading off the 9th, but I guess Gardenhire liked having the Redmond (RH) vs the Benitez (RH) more than either Everett (RH), or Lamb (LH) vs Carlson (LH).

Now for some stats:
NAdv: Mench (2)
P-NAdv: Crain
WG: Scutaro (5), Rolen (3), Monroe
ME(r): Kubel