Ok so after Monday's Jays game I believe that the team is moving in the right direction, why you ask? Thats because despite falling back 7 runs early in the game the offence was alive the whole game, they hit so much that they ate into the Rays bullpen and overall came back from a 2 run difference to win the game. So considering my new enthusiasm I'm going to be doing a daily 'Bird Watch' post every day I manage to catch a Jays game (which should be every day). In addition I might move it around to include the Orioles and Cardinals at some time as they are both teams that are playing very well, with either lack of key players (Cardinals) or a limited budget compared to other teams (Orioles). So look forward to it!
Now back to the Jays game. Obviously I expect many fans like myself were very positive with how the game started, Buerhle wasn't walking a lot of people or giving up hits. Then the third inning came around and it seemed like it was a never ending onslaught by the Rays, 7 runs in one inning, I was near ready to smash my head on my desk. I kept tuned in though and then it was as if the lights went on and we scored 3 in the next inning and Buerhle had the inning go 3 up and 3 down. The next inning was unremarkable but if you were paying attention you could see that our players were taking a lot more pitches and weren't swinging at first pitches either, which as I previously mentioned in yesterday's Blue Jays rant, has been our achilles heel for ages, we end up with the most home runs in the league but it's at the cost of a consistent offence. In addition I think it was VERY good that it wasn't just Encarnacion and Bautista leading the way, since that would just mean the people we expect to drive in runs are doing so, but we had the brunt of the runs we scored in the 3rd and 5th by Rasmus and DeRosa, people we don't often see produce in the way they did during games.
Now by this time we were up to a 2 run deficit (7-5) but again despite a negative game Buerhle sat down the opposition 3 up 3 down no problem. Now things were getting better because by the 7th we had already forced the Rays to go to their setup man (Farnsworth), who not to long ago was the teams closer and fairly effective at it, so you could tell we were getting into their bullpen early. So our offence smacks some more hits, steals a couple of basis but ultimately goes down without improving the score. Now while a bit down that we didn't continue the rally we had going I did take notice that it didn't even take an inning to get Farnsworth out of there again another positive to eat into the bullpen. From here Esmil Rogers took control and cleared out the 7th and following this the offence turns on again, getting 2 of the first 3 hitters on base. And then Joe Maddon did something a bit strange, he brought on Fernando Rodney in the top of the 8th. Now I'm not going to question the actions of someone like Joe Maddon who is honestly one of the best managers in the game considering what he is able to do with the players he has, at least in my opinion, but every time see a manager bring out their closer earlier than the 9th inning or with a run deficit it usually goes VERY wrong. Which, fortunately for me and other Jays fans, it did. We fought back to be back only one run, Darren Oliver had a pretty clean 8th and then Rodney so kindly allowed us to score our 7th and 8th runs and to finish it up Casey Janssen sat down all 3 of the starting batters.
Ok so thats more or less a long winded version of the box score. What I did notice in this game were some things similar to the last game against the Mariners. First off Gibbons did a much better job of managing the guys on base and getting them to steal at great times and frequently at that, which is one thing I've always thought Joe Maddon does a fantastic job at (taking the pitchers attention away from the hitter causing him to fuck up), in addition the offence was consistent again with 12 hits over the game and good plate discipline telling us the Seattle game wasn't a fluke. Then as well NO ERRORS on our part and an overall positive attitude, I mean can you imagine what its like being on a pro sports team and all of a sudden having to overcome a 7 point lead, I give all of the Jays a tip of my hat for being able to come back offensively and mentally to win that game and look forward to tomorrows event with Happ vs. Hernandez (former Fausto Carmona, for those who don't know).
-Eric
No comments:
Post a Comment