Blue Jays Recap: Francisco Liriano strong but Toronto falls again

The Blue Jays moved to 1-8 on the season on Thursday night, losing their 6th consecutive game.

The Toronto Blue Jays lost…AGAIN. Yes, it has been frustrating time for the Blue Jays as the season has begun in the worst possible way for the team. The Blue Jays have never started 1-6 before. They had also not started 1-7 and have also not started 1-8 before. However, Blue Jays have started 1-8 and there is no going back from that.

Want some sort of positives from the game? There is definitely a few. Francisco Liriano threw 6.2 strong innings and he struck out 10 batters. Liriano was coming off of his worst start of his MLB career. His first start of the season, Liriano walked 4 batters and struck out just 1 in .1 innings pitched. Basically, anything more than .1 innings was an improvement. He surely did that.

The Toronto Blue Jays bullpen was good yet again tonight. Joe Biagini threw 1.1 innings, allowing no hits and striking out 2. Joe Smith, who has been fantastic since joining the Blue Jays stuck out all 3 batters he faced. Liriano, Biagini, and Smith shut down the Orioles offense.

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In a 2-1 game, its difficult to credit the winning team. After all, they only scored 2 runs and they were both scored in the 5th inning. Orioles 2nd baseman Jonathan Schoop drove in 1 run and shortstop J.J Hardy drove in the other. That was the only offense the Orioles could manage against Liriano, who was dominant.

For Blue Jays fans looking for some sort of encouragement after a 1-8 start, half of their team has shown up. The pitching has been fantastic. Besides 1 bad outing from Francisco Liriano and 1 bad relief outing from J.P Howell, the Blue Jays pitching staff has been really good.

The Blue Jays rank next to last in almost every offensive category. That surely will not continue. Had they had some sort of offense over the first week and a half, one could argue that the Blue Jays could be at least .500.

Next: Blue Jays' Stroman poised to push for Ace status

The start for the Blue Jays has been terrible. There is no real way around it. The pitching has been great. The offense has not.