Ok so a little more of a quick post from the end of the game today. So the pitching performances first off. Buerhle did a great job, and yes a guy at Buerhle's age and skill set doing what he did over 6 innings was good. Now I'm sure people will be saying 'but Eric he allowed 5 runs!' while that may be true in terms of how the stats interpret what happened in the game I completely blame Aaron Loup for those extra 2 runs, why you ask? Well look at the pitch that Brett Garden and Jayson Nix hit to drive in those 2 runs, they were fastballs piped right down the middle, something you ABSOLUTELY NEVER DO when their are players in scoring position, because of course your looking to keep the ball in the infield to prevent that runner at third from coming home. If I'm being honest Aaron Loup gives me a heart attack whenever he comes up because it seems like when he takes the mound he's running through a check list 'practice pitches, check, let in runs previous pitcher left on base, check'. He seems to be incapable of coming in when their are players on base without letting in a run (he allows runs that are unearned so thats why his ERA isn't in the trash). On the other side though Kuroda pitched amazing, the location of his pitches and control was spot on for the first 6 innings but in the 7th and 8th he started to falter and unfortunately the Jay's offence couldn't take full advantage of it.
So let's break down the last 3 innings when they had a chance to make a comeback. Ok so top of the 7th, in the box score it says that Bautista popped out to SS Jayson Nix, but if you watched the game you'd know that despite getting out Jose made Kuroda throw 8 pitches to get that out. And as everyone knows the more pitches a pitcher throws the more tired he gets and the more prone he is to make mistakes. Then Edwin comes up and singles to left, so it looks like we're getting somewhere, then unfortunately Arencibia comes up, I'm not knocking him but his plate discipline today was just terrible. And he struck out swinging on a couple pitches quite a ways out of the zone that could have potentially gotten him a walk. Now Adam Lind comes up and ends up being the last out of the inning, but on the other hand Lind, like Bautista, worked the count and made Kuroda work for that final out of the inning. So the first half of the 7th comes and goes and we lost an opportunity to get 1-2 runs in.
Next The bottom of the 7th comes and this is where shit hit the fan, 2 players got on base (and I wasn't sure what to make of that bunt by Suzuki. I will say though that Romine should have been an easier out as he is just not that great of a player to begin with. But it happened. So here I would think they'd go for a double play but as I said before Loup piped a fastball right down the middle to give Gardner a single and drive in Suzuki, then he did it again with Niz and FINALLy he got Cano to line into a double play. And in my opinion if your within 3 runs of tying the game you still have a chance but one it gets to the point where your beyond that and in the last 2 innings your pretty much screwed. Especially since the Yanks can call upon the Sandman (Mariano Rivera) when they need to.
Ok the top of the 8th comes up, Lawrie strikes out swinging but at the very least he didn't do so on terrible pitches but it is hard to imagine how he missed a couple of those ones since they were fairly open in the strike zone and he did chase one outside of the strike zone. Colby Rasmus comes up, same story, chased a couple balls and grounded out. Finally Bonifacio comes out, now Emilio worked the count, forced Kuroda to throw a lot of pitches but didn't get enough power on the bay to drive it into the outfield, not gonna blame him for that but wasn't good timing for it.
Bottom of the 8th was rather uneventful as well, Rogers replaced Loup (shouldn't have put him on the mound in the first place though). Wells strikes out swinging (Rogers' control is looking good), Francisco flies out to short centre, then Overbay singles and a wild pitch moves him forward, though it didn't really matter since Rogers struck out Adams.
Top of the 9th and no Mariano Rivera, in fact they put up a call up so all of sudden we have a chance, especially because the last set of games the Jays haven't let up on young or struggling pitchers. Kawasaki comes to the plate and very unlike him, strikes out, wasn't very happy about this as Kawasaki is usually the best guy for getting the pitcher to throw tons of pitches. Next up Cabrera steps to the plate and singles to left, FANTASTIC I thought. But they Bautista flies out, and yea the plate discipline faded a bit there, next up Edwin and unlike Bautista he didn't loose any composure and doubles bringing Melky to 3rd and leaving 1st open for whoever is up next. But then Arencibia steps up again and I put my face in my hands, and of course he does what he did most of the game, chased 2 pitches that were WAY out of the zone (I'm talking about a 1/3-1/2 a foot on the outside corner) and ends up being caught on a fly ball in foul territory by the catcher. And that of course meant game over.
Now these 3 innings were the worst of it for the Blue Jays offence, we had some guys get on base but for the most part the power hitters couldn't get them in, despite Kuroda or Claiborne have wobbly control in those last 3 innings. Now the odd thing is that usually this kind of thing happens because the leadoff man doesn't get on and as a result the power bats try to smash the ball for a home run instead of just getting on base, but Melky got on base nearly every time and when he did get out he was working the count and getting Kuroda to throw many pitches and he's working through an injury for fucks sake. In addition Kawasaki got picked off in the 3rd, which in my mind was a terrible thing since we were already behind and getting hits, not to mention runners in scoring position was a problem. In the end, with the exception of Arencibia chasing pitches and that pick off of Kawasaki the Jays offence was alright for the first 6 innings but they couldn't grab opportunity when they had a chance during the 7th 8th and 9th innings when the pitchers were at their weakest and we had men on base. Hopefully the team can salvage a win tomorrow as Morrow steps back onto the mound back from the neck spasms he was having.
I will say that even though I sound like I'm being hard on the team in this post, I really think that if they can even continue playing to HALF the potential they showed over the last 5 games they can get into the playoffs, because when you look at things happening from now on, we've got the pitchers who had Tommy John coming back within the month, we've got Reyes coming back a little later than that and Josh Johnson and perhaps J.A. Happ at the same time. We're going to be getting some serious reinforcements soon so they team just needs to hold things together and win some more games.
-Eric
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