Game 66 – Un-clutch

I guess this is what happens when you put 2 of the worst offences against each other. The teams combined to go 1 for 20 w/RISP, 1 for 13 by the Jays and 0 for 7 for SEA. I guess that is why SEA turned to the squeeze bunt to score the winning run in the 10th, even w/the bases loaded.

The Jays had their chance to at least tie it up in the bottom of the 10th as they loaded the bases w/none out. Stop me if you’ve heard this before, the Jays failed to even score a run as Overbay grounded into a 3-2-3 DP and after a BB to Scutaro, Eckstein flied out.

It seemed like the Mariners just kept trying to hand this game to the Jays. They made 3 errors, had a PB, a WP, they walked 7 batters and all the Jays got was 2 runs. One of the errors came w/2 out in the 7th allowing the tying run to score. So maybe the Jays don’t even get to extras. Then what started the rally in the 10th was an error and a WP but the Jays couldn’t take advantage.

I’m a little surprised the Mariners even chose to pitch to Wells in the 7th w/1st base open and another RH hitter, Barajas, on deck. At the very least I thought they might pitch to him but give him the intentional unintentional walk hoping he would get himself out chasing pitches. In fact he did chase the 1st pitch and the 2nd one should have resulted in an out if not for the error.

Not often you see a player PH in order to bunt, but the Jays used McDonald to bunt for Stairs in the 7th. The move made sense given the Mariners had just brought in a lefty and Stairs can’t bunt and doesn’t hit lefties well. Plus the Jays are the home team down by 1 w/their 3 and 4 hitters coming up needing a hit to at least tie it and probably give them the lead. Also the only other options off the bench were LH’s Wilkerson and Inglett or RH Thigpen.

It wasn’t exactly a stellar outing for Litsch as he gave up 10 hits but thanks to the Mariners failure to get a hit w/RISP he only gave up 2 runs on a HR to the 2nd batter of the game.

Downs and Camp each had 1-2-3 innings in the 7th and 8th respectively. I would have left Camp in for the 9th as well. He only threw 7 pitches and the Mariners had the bottom of the order coming up, all 3 of whom were RH. Once a game reaches the 9th inning and the home team is not ahead then there will be no save opportunity for the closer so usually I am all for bringing in your closer ASAP. However, in this case I think it made sense to leave Camp in and save Ryan for the 10th should it go that far.

Now for the stats:
Adv+: Barajas (5)
P-Adv+: Putz
NAdv: Overbay (8)
P-NAdv: Putz
WG: Wells (3)