Game Recap: Blue Jays 5, Guardians 3

At least Jose appears to have dodged a more serious injury

Well. Quite the eventful game for my first recap, lol. As of my writing this, Jose’s injury while beating out a groundball in the third inning was diagnosed as a “mild right ankle strain”.

So, I guess, not the worst. It looked scarily similar to an ACL tear at first glance.

Per cleveland.com’s Joe Noga, Jose is currently ‘day-to-day’.

On the more fun and less I-Never-Want-To-Watch-The-Sport-Again side, Carlos Santana continued to give the Blue Jays hell (.284/.403/.518 in his career, not including tonight’s game). 2 RBI. Not bad for the old man.

On the also very fun side, Bo Naylor continues to refuse to let me give up on him. 410 feet, very casual for the native Canadian. In his last 11 games, he’s running an OPS well over .800.

Logan Allen was, well, Logan Allen. Nibbled all game, got hit around a bit. Errors notwithstanding, pretty good game for our 5th starter.

Also, fun fact, this rotation has been **fantastic** since that horrendous game 1 against the Twins. Here are their totals since game 1:

24.2 (IP) 19-H 4-BB 3-ER 16-K

Good for a cool 1.09 ERA… not bad. Ye olde pitching coach might still have it.

And, hey, we got a look at our newest Guardians pitcher, Matt Festa. First strikeout in the uniform, congratulations! By. The. Way. What an outing for new demon Festa (the better of the two notable Festa MLB players, in my opinion). 1.1 innings, a strikeout, and gave up only one hit. Got both Vladdy and Santander out on consecutive pitches. Awesome stuff, and on 16 pitches to boot.

TJStats

(Courtesy of @TJStats on Twitter)

He used to throw a slider and a sinker as well, but he stuck to just his fastball and cutter today. Both graded out very well, earning above average tjStuff+ grades (for reference, with Stuff+, 100 is average. Above 100 is good, below is bad.) Interesting pickup for the Guardians, and you can read more about him here:

Stranded two runners in the 7th on some ugly at-bats from Will Wilson and Gabriel Arias.

Looks like this was another classic Vogt punt game. Not a huge fan of that in a close game, but whatever. Festa-Junis-Cantillo in the 6th-7th-8th in a tie game was… definitely a choice, but I guess I understand not wanting to tax your big arms this early in the season. If it continues to come at the cost of wins, our beloved skipper will be hearing from me.

Junis gave up the eventually game-winning 2-run single in the 8th, which, I’m gonna be honest, is enraging as a fan. Why you left in a righty against the left-handed Lukes (.451 OPS, 40 wRC+ against LHP vs his .785 OPS and 123 wRC+ against RHP) instead of bringing in Cantillo is beyond me. Maybe we will hear Vogt address it, because maybe there is a reason aside from “trusting your guys.”

Moving away from that, Kwan put up an unbelievable at-bat after falling down 0-2 to Hoffman. Insane stuff from him, who, by the way, is still eligible for an extension! Hint, hint!

But, the Guardians fell 5-3. All things considered, with a starting pitching matchup disadvantage tonight, not bad. Let’s get Jose healthy and go get the Canadians tomorrow.