Blue Jays Fall to the Orioles: Unable to Score Past the First

The Blue Jays fell to the Baltimore Orioles and lose the series after another night of leaving runners on base.  Neither pitcher had their best stuff this game, but both starters managed to keep the big bats silent after the first inning.

Marco Estrada battled through five innings of work and got a no-decision.  He was struggling with his location; however, he managed to prevent the Orioles from scoring past the 1st inning.  He allowed only one run on six hits, with four walks and a total of nine strikeouts.

The majority of the action was found in the 1st inning.  Chris Tillman faced eight of the Blue Jays’ batters in the 1st, threw 38 pitches and walked in a run after loading the bases.  He eventually got out of the inning after allowing only two runs to score.

Estrada also loaded the bases in his half of the first.  The first batter reached on a strange play at 3rd base when the ball ripped a hole through the glove of Josh Donaldson, allowing Joey Rickard to get to first without a throw.  Estrada got a strikeout and a double play to get out of the bases-loaded situation.

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Pat Venditte entered in relief of Estrada and pitched a clean 6th but walked a batter, hit a batter and loaded the bases in the 7th.  John Gibbons brought in Brett Cecil who got the Jays out of the bases-loaded situation allowing the tying run to score, but no more.

The Orioles take the lead in the 8th after a passed ball by Russell Martin moved Rickard to second and poor defense by the Jays, and a double by Manny Machado allowed Rickard to score.

The inconsistent umping in the game caused some conflict with both teams.  Jose Bautista was thrown what he considered to be four balls in the 2nd inning; however, he was sitting on a 2-2 count.  He grounded out to first and glared at home plate umpire, Dan Bellino.  Later, in the 5th, Matt Wieters got tossed out of the game when he argued the third strike called by Bellino.

Chris Davis managed to walk four times and the Blue Jays weren’t able to bring home the runners they left stranded on base.

The Blue Jays are now headed back home to face the Oakland Athletics where it will be a righty-on-righty matchup of Aaron Sanchez (1-0 with a 1.35 ERA) against Sonny Gray (2-1 and a 2.33ERA).