EMK19

This pitcher is honestly Juan Guzman-level slow to work to the plate... and Hutch was slow himself so the pace of the game is just so... ugh. Hate games like this.

Is Tepera is seemingly ahead of Hendriks as a long reliever? Is Gibbons now seeing Hendriks more as a 1-2 inning only guy in the 6/7th in his bullpen "roles"? Need to keep it at 4 here for our guys to have any chances at coming back tonight, and not sure I want to see the repeat of the Orioles/1st Bosox game blowout this series. Need to take limiting the damage more seriously this game.

It seems like Gibby is basically seeing Pompey strictly as a pinch runner at this point... pretty surprised he hasn't got any at bats, or even come on as a defensive replacement in those two blowout games, with even Carrera being preferred over him apparently. I do want to ask him what is his thinking with this...

Seemed like it hit squarely right on the corner of the monster there. I'm guessing the ball needs to catch most of that top portion of the monster fence for it to be ruled a hr, or they simply just didn't have enough of that camera evidence so they kept the call on the field...? Thing is though that triple call kept the pressure of the inning going instead of clearing the bases, which resulted in their young pitcher falling apart mentally resulting in our big inning. Who knows if all that could have happened if that was called a homer...

Very glad we managed to win a game where nothing seemed to go our way for most of the game... JD came up big again and Tulo finally got the break he needed in batting, a weak rolling grounder but for once this one found a hole! Also fortunate enough to face young Red Sox players out there who just kinda fell apart mentally there under pressure in that final inning. The par of 1.5 games restored... Hutch needs to come up big tm. Kudos to Dickey today for pitching well again, needed that from our starter after the Buehrle outing yesterday.

We usually hit Tazawa well... could be our chance here.

I just hope that we don't see that Ortiz/Loup situation happening in the next two innings....

Honestly, is Pompey in the doghouse or something? Not being used even as a pinch hitter in those blowouts, and now Carrera apparently ahead in the pecking order... unless Gibby is just waiting on the opportunity to use Pompey as a pinch runner late...

The way this game is going, someone's just gonna have to hit a homer, we really can't seem to manufacture at all today.

Is Dickey's run support among the worst in the league? Because I gotta think so the way the bats have almost always gone cold with him in... ugh.

Does Pennington even have a hit right handed yet as a Blue Jay? I seriously don't think he has any yet and I think all of his Blue Jay hits may have come from the left side...

I'm actually glad that he has that personality of a "robot". We got enough guys who play with emotion on this team (sometimes with too much) and I find that he provides a nice counterbalance. He brought in that professional/cool-headed approach to the game that I felt the team needed more of prior to his acquisition.

It kind of sucks how Dickey has been placed at the final games of the series so often lately, no real opportunity to take advantage of the supposed Dickey effect... I know the validity of the Dickey effect is debated but in Yankees' case we know it at least gets into their heads as they've said so on paper (in messing up their swing), I wish it could have been arranged so that he pitches first or second game of the series but of course realistically the rotation can't be drastically adjusted in that way.

Yeah, ideally I'd want Stroman to have few more rehab starts, or at least start him off facing a weaker team/lower leverage game (vs. Braves maybe?) as opposed to vs. the Yankees at Yankees Stadium for example. But Buehrle at the same time has been just as concerning... real tough decision to make there, but I have this feeling Gibby is going to try to stick with Buehrle for the time being... hard for anyone managing the game to totally lose faith right away in the guy who's been doing it for so many years, even if the signs of that sudden rapid decline is there.

Not sure about Gibby going with our back end mop up guys even in situations where we are only 3-4 down with plenty of more innings to go... Saw this in that Tigers blowout game as well and I don't know if Gibbons is perhaps being too over cautious with working our main pen guys/over trusting of the back end guys... Perhaps he just wants them to be fresh to go for the Yankees series which will of course matter the most, but don't know, it seems like its really short selling our offence's ability to bring us back into the game by putting those back end guys in there so early. I suppose I can accept this at this point, but i really don't want to be seeing this type of bullpen management vs. Yankees/final two weeks or so in the season, IMO we should be fighting hard to keep ourselves in games to try to win every game at this point as long as the deficit looks reasonable. Buehrle over the past 5 starts or so has looked very off and at this point I'm wondering if he even has the gas to go on for the rest of the season with any effectiveness anymore... At this pace, Stroman may have to overtake Buehrle's spot instead of Hutch's... At least Hutch has proven himself with couple nice starts recently before that sudden implosion late in his last start. Not a good time to be having rotational issues right now, but at least we have Stroman now to slot in somewhere if it comes down to it I guess. Martin meanwhile really needs to figure out his batting right now because his constant DPs are really killing all those mid/low lineup rallies right now.

Not expecting much help from Rays, most I am expecting is that like you said, Archer can pull one off on Sunday, and that we win the next two games to get back to where we was coming into this series. Ultimately it's all mostly going to come down to the face to face matchups with the Yanks anyway...

My line of thought today was that 4 runs to make up with 3 more innings coming up would have been pretty reasonable to expect our guys to have a good run at overcoming, and that we should have did our best to keep it at that 4 run margin for at least one/two more innings and see it from there. I personally would have used Hendriks for one more inning with Lowe/Hawkins waiting on deck there before electing to go to bottom end pen guys like Tepera/Schultz/Loup etc (especially since we had a day off yesterday, and with Price who will give you good amount of innings coming up tm). who I don't really trust as much, but I suppose Gibby has more confidence in those guys than I do. I was also surprised we didn't give Pompey a shot of getting an at-bat in once the game was out of reach... it would have been a good time to ease him back in at the plate...

Hopefully we win the next two then the Rays can at least take the 3rd game vs. Yanks with Archer to at least get back to the status quo of 1.5 games it was coming in.

Coming into the series I figured this was the one game I could see us likely dropping, I had this feeling that we weren't going to sweep the Orioles. Price needs to have a big shut down game tm for us, this is what we got him for. Then hopefully we can pull it off on Sunday to at least win the series.

At least our hitters are continuing to stay patient.

Seriously, why are we not giving Pompey an at bat here...

Reminds me of John Cerutti (RIP...)

Was surprised not to see Pompey not on deck, perfect chance to give him some time on the field and an at bat...

Using Tepera then Schultz starting the 7th in a 4 run game huh, coming off a day off... I guess Gibbons didn't have much confidence in us making that up there today...

1989 is my first recollection of watching the Blue Jays, but it wasn't until 1991 where I started to follow the Jays seriously. My first game at Skydome was for what turned out to be Jimmy Key's final regular season game as a Blue Jay, I believe we beat the Red Sox that day and won the division a few days later.