Jays take 8 walks, beat Twins

Twins 2 Blue Jays 6

The Jays were hitless through 3 innings, with just one walk. It sometimes seems they like to lure the other team into a false sense of security.

Then, four runs in the fourth. Marcus Semien led off with his 40th home run of the season, the first time a Blue Jay second baseman has hit 40. Aaron Hill had 36 in 2009. Vlad followed with a walk in a 9-pitch at-bat. Bo singled. And Teoscar brought them home with his 28th home run of the season (a wall scrapper).

And we got two more in the seventh. Alejandro Kirk, pinch-hitting, started things off with a walk. Danny Jansen came in to pinch run. George Springer walked. After a Semien strikeout, Vlad walked again, this time on 8 pitches. And Bo lined a single up the middle, scoring two.

We had 7 hits and 8 walks on the day. Everyone in the starting lineup reached except for Lourdes Gurriel and Randal Grichuk.

Bo had 3 hits. Springer, Vlad, and Breyvic Valera each had 2 walks.

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Steven Matz gave up a couple of runs in the first and then settled down on the pitching side. The runs came on a Josh Donaldson home run (his second in two games).

Matz ended up going 5.2 innings, allowing 3 hits, 2 walks with 5 strikeouts. He had some long at-bats in there, throwing 96 pitches.

In the sixth, he gave up a two-out Donaldson walk and a Miguel Sano single. Trevor Richards came in and got the third out of the inning.

Tim Mayza got the next four outs, and Adam Cimber picked up the last two of the eighth.

Jordan Romano got the ninth, even though it wasn’t a save. He last pitched Wednesday, and Charlie seems to want to get him out there every three or four days. I’d have preferred to see Pearson. He gave up a walk and had two strikeouts.

There were a couple of pretty nice defensive plays. Randal Grichuk made a nice catch in center, coming in on a ball, and Bo made a nice play on a ball hit to his right and a throw right on target (with a bounce).

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Jays of the Day: Hernandez (.170 WPA), Bichette (.107), and Mayza. Give an honorable mention to Vlad for his hit and two walks.

Suckage? No one had the number. Grichuk had the low mark at -.081 for his 0 for 4, including a double-play ball.

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Tomorrow is the rubber match. Jose Berrios (11-8, 3.43) goes against his old team. MLB.com still lists TBA as the Twin’s starter.

We had 452 comments in the GameThread. I led us to victory.