That wasn’t fun.
Coming into today’s game, Chris Tillman had a 5.65 ERA against Toronto in 21 career starts. His inability to retire Blue Jays batters continued on Sunday as he allowed four runs in five innings pitched, but Baltimore was still able to get the victory thanks to Marcus Stroman pitching even worse than Tillman. He allowed runs in three of the four innings he appeared in, giving up 10 hits and only striking out four batters. Joe Biagini wasn’t too hot as well, as he faced five batters and retired just one. However, Gavin Floyd was brilliant, furthering his resurgence, retiring all six batters he faced while striking out two of them. Chad Girodo and Jesse Chavez weren’t fans of Floyd’s work though, and thus they decided to go back to what was working for Stroman and Biagini, combining to give up three runs in the seventh inning. It would have been more, but Michael Saunders robbed a home run to keep the game within five runs! Drew Storen pitched a scoreless eighth, though he allowed three baserunners in the process.
On the offensive side of things, the Blue Jays were led by Devon Travis and Troy Tulowitzki, who had three and two hits respectively. It was a quite day for Josh Donaldson and Edwin Encarnacion, as they both went o-fer against the Orioles pitching.
Top Play of the Game by WPA
Down 3-0 after the first inning, the Blue Jays needed to come back quickly before the game got out of hand. The offense did just that in the second inning, as Troy Tulowitzki and Devon Travis both hit two-run home runs to put the Blue Jays on top 4-3. Travis’ was the top WPA moment of the game, increasing the Blue Jays’ chances of winning by 18.5 percentage points.
Bottom Play of the Game by WPA
After back-to-back hits to open the bottom of the first inning, the Orioles were threatening with the American League’s home run leader up to bat. Fortunately for the Blue Jays, Mark Trumbo hit a groundball to Darwin Barney at third, who tossed it to Devon Travis covering second base, who used his extremely quick hands to turn the double play at first base. This wouldn’t matter in the end, but at the time, this lowered the Orioles’ chance of winning the baseball game by 10 percentage points.
Looking on the Bright Side
Although the game itself was very ugly, the bats were putting up 2015-like numbers yet again. It was their seventh time in the past nine games that they scored six or more runs, a sure recipe to win ballgames. What made the Blue Jays so hard to beat last year is that even if their top hitters didn’t produce, the bottom of the order did, and they would still score a ton of runs. The same held true today, as even though the aforementioned Donaldson and Encarnacion, as well as Michael Saunders, did not reach base, the Blue Jays were still able to do ample damage.
Trend to Watch
The Blue Jays’ expected ace had another horrific outing on Sunday, lasting just three and two thirds innings while allowing seven earned runs. It seemed as if Stroman was missing every spot Russell Martin set up in, and that led to a lot of hard hit balls for the Orioles.
Stroman's done after 3.2 innings. Orioles had his number all afternoon; seven balls put in play at 99 mph or higher.
— Arden Zwelling (@ArdenZwelling) June 19, 2016
The Blue Jays are going to need to work with Stroman a lot over the next few days to try to pinpoint what has caused his control to disappear in hopes to have him pitching like the top player he is supposed to be.
Up Next
The Blue Jays will take their first off day since June 2nd on Monday before facing the Arizona Diamondbacks for a quick two game series in Toronto. Marco Estrada (5-2, 2.58) will face Patrick Corbin (3-6, 4.76), as the Blue Jays look to break their mini two game losing streak against a team that sits well below .500.
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