August 9: Jays 1, Rays 7

Henderson Alvarez fails, Jays muster three hits, limp home.

The Blue Jays limp home from their road trip going 2 - 8 against three very good pitching teams. The road trip looked promising enough, but after Lawries and Rasmus' exit in the Oakland game 6 nights ago, things looked bleak indeed, and the team was only able to eke out a couple of very lucky wins on Saturday and Sunday.

The Jays opened scoring with a lead off double by Rajai, followed by a stolen base, walk and a balk. Henderson looked good in the first, but then seemed to unravel. The second inning started with an Encarnacion error at 1st, followed by an out at first, single, walk, single (scoring 2), walk (to load the bases), out (to score). Alverez then let in a run each in the 3rd, 4th, and 5th inning and exited early.

Henderson's line was bad, letting in 6 runs (4 earned), giving up 11 hits and 3 walks over 4 and 2/3rds, throwing 83 pitches. Loup finished the 5th and 6th, Oliver pitched the 7th, and Janssen pitched the 8th, giving up a run on two doubles (the second appeared to be a home run, but hit the top of the glass in CF to be a double). Janssen let in his third earned run in his last 22 appearnances in a meaningless appearance.

So, the Jays once again fall victim to poor pitching and no offense, mustering up a very paltry three hits (Davis, Sierra, Cooper) in the afternoon's outing.

The Blue Jays take their AC Jetz plane home from Tampa after this game, to open a welcome home stand against the Yankees, White Sox, and Baltimore, all good teams.

I'll talk about the Blue Jays hitting woes in another post. But man, what a disappointing road trip.