Last night the Jays played Orioles ball, which consists of:
- Scoring a lot of runs, especially by hitting home runs.
- Giving up a lot of runs.
The latter was especially true, as Marcum had a rocky start in rejoining the Jays. It seems like he missed his location a few times and his breaking pitches looked a little flat. Unfortunately, when you hang too many over the plate to a lineup like Baltimore has, you aren’t going to have a great deal of success. It is important to keep in mind that he has been off for a month and is likely rusty with his location; look for an improvement over his next two starts.
One thing that concerned me was Eckstein’s judgment at the plate. With 2 out in the third inning, and runners on second and third, he drops down a bunt. It ran right down the third base line, in a perfect spot to prevent him from being thrown out at first. It was also in a perfect spot to almost get Adam Lind tagged out trying to run home. That play would have been perfect with nobody out and nobody on, or say, a guy on 1st or 2nd. But when you’re up there with a guy on 3rd and 2 out, a non-perfect bunt is a nice way to get yourself out, and a perfect one accomplishes dick all other than getting yourself onto a base that was open anyway. In that situation, you don’t need base runners, you need to get your runners in. So what in the hell was he thinking?
Apparently Gaston thought this move was idiotic too. After Scutaro flied out to end the inning, Eckstein was promptly replaced with Matt Stairs. Sounds like a message to me. But in the 9th when Lind was replaced with Wilkerson, shifting Mench to left field, I wondered what was going on. Then I saw Wilk make that phenomenal catch and thought, oh, that’s why, Cito is psychic. Oh well. A win is a win. And Lind is my new hero.