Game 92 – The RBI Groundout

Twice in 3 games, after not happening the 1st 89 games, the Jays win in a walk-off. This time they were down 5-2 headed to the bottom of the 8th where they scored 2 to close to within one. Then in the 9th against BAL closer George Sherrill they loaded the bases w/1 out before Overbay hit a SF to tie it and Lind came through w/the game winning hit (1 of his 3 hits on the night).

It was a good start from Parrish and he did it on 11 days rest. He went 7 innings giving up 3 runs on 6 hits and 2 walks. That’s 2 good starts now from Parrish and he has walked 4 in 13 innings which isn’t great but that has typically been his problem.

The winning hit by Lind to win it was the Jays lone hit w/a RISP in 7 AB’s. However, the Jays were managing to push across those runners once they got to 3rd w/less then 2 out. In fact the Jays 1st 4 runs all scored on groundouts. For 2 of the 4 the Jays managed to score the runner from 2nd w/none out by nice execution. First they advanced the runner to 3rd using the 1st out then scoring them on the 2nd out.

I think based on how late Eckstein squared around to bunt in the 4th he was actually trying to bunt for a hit. Not a bad idea since even if he doesn’t beat it out, it may go as a sac bunt. However, I think that would have been a good spot to use the hit and run. You have a 2-1 count, Guthrie is a ground ball pitcher and Eckstein handles the bat well. The hit and run is something I haven’t seen much from Cito. Granted the 3 best guys for it, Eckstein, Zaun, and McDonald, seem to be finding themselves on the bench more often than not.

Let’s see the stats:
Adv: Jones, Inglett 2 (2)
P-Adv: Guthrie, Johnson, Parrish (1)
Adv+: Payton
P-Adv+: Parrish (1)
WG: Rolen (8), Wilkerson (2)