Vlad Guerrero hits two home runs, Jays win

Blue Jays 7 Giants 3

I went to 6 Blue Jays games last week, hoping to see Vlad’s first home run. Vladmir Guerrero Jr. hits his first 2 home runs today. I feel ripped off.

Anyway his first home run, in the first inning, went 438 feet (to dead center) and left the bat at 111.3 MPH. The next at bat was just a single (also at 113.3 MPH). Then a walk. In the 6th inning, he hit his second home run 451 feet, leaving the bat at 113.7 MPH. The second one scored Trent Thornton and Eric Sogard. He ground out in the 8th for his first out of the game.

Vlad wasn’t the only Jay to have a first and second today. Trent Thornton had his first and second MLB hits tonight, going 2 for 3 and scoring two runs. He also got his first MLB win.

We got some hits today (feels like we had more hits tonight than we totaled in the 6 games I was at last week). 10 hits. and 7 walks. Vlad had 3. Sogard and Thornton 2 each.

Justin Smoak (with 2 walks), Jonathan Davis and Danny Jansen (1 walk) were the only starters without a hit.

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Thornton wasn’t bad on the mound tonight as well. He went 5.2, allowed just 2 hits (one a Pablo Sandoval home run), 2 earned, 5 walks with 7 strikeouts. He was having some trouble finding the strikezone but he didn’t give up much for hard contact. He gave up a couple of walks in the 6th inning and Charlie took him out of the game. He was at 102 pitches.

So Trent had 2 hits and allowed 2 hits, so that’s like a no-hitter right?

From the pen:

• Daniel Hudson got the last out of the 6th inning.
• Tim Mayza, in his league leading 22 appearance, pitched the 7th, giving up just a walk, while getting 3 soft ground outs. Tim got the first out of the 8th, getting another ground out.
• Joe Biagini came in and gave up 2 doubles, giving up a run but got out of the inning without any more damage.
• Ken Giles pitched the 9th, even though it wasn’t a save, but then he’s one of the few guys in the pen who hasn’t pitched a lot of late.

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There was a rather weird moment in the Jays half of the 7th inning. Billy McKinney hit a fly ball and Kevin Pillar turned the wrong way and then had the ball go off his glove for a 3-base error. That wasn’t the weird moment, though I can’t remember Kevin playing a ball that badly before.

With 2 outs and Jansen on first, Jansen went for a steal of second, Giants’ catcher Stephen Vogt bluffed a throw to second, McKinney started towards home. Vogt threw to third but McKinney got his shoulder in the way of the throw and then went home, but the 3rd base ump called him out for intentionally getting in the way of the throw. It is a call you rarely see, but it was the right call.

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Jays of the Day: Vlad (.282 WPA), Trent (.055 pitching and .039 batting for a .094).

Suckage: Grichuk had the low mark at -.083. Much of that came in the 2nd inning. With the bases loaded, Randal got off to a 2-0 start, then chased 2 pitches out of the strikezone, before popping out on a full count pitch.

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Tomorrow is an afternoon game. 3:45 Eastern start.

We had 655 comments in the GameThread. DangYouToHeck beat me out to lead us to victory.

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I really like this:

And this: