It was a bad day for Hyun-jin Ryu and the Toronto Blue Jays.
Toronto lost a 6-7 road game against the Tampa Bay Rays on April 24 at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida, USA.
The loss dropped the Jays to 1-1 in the all-time series at 86-69. Tampa Bay improved to 95-61.
Starter Ryu struggled, allowing five runs on seven hits, three homers, three walks and two strikeouts in 4 1/3 innings. He threw his most pitches of the season (89), but also gave up the most home runs and the most runs allowed. His ERA rose to 3.31. The only consolation was that he avoided a loss.
The first inning was the most frustrating. I gave up a solo home run to Yandy Diaz in the first, followed by two walks to load the bases, and then a three-run homer to Josh Lowe. That’s four runs in one inning.
He gave up a solo home run to Christian Betancourt in the fourth inning, his third homer of the game.
Despite not having his best stuff, he was fortunate to make it to the fifth inning. He had a chance to close out the fifth, but gave up a walk and a hit before leaving the game.
Trevor Richards, who came on in a difficult situation, stranded the next two runners to prevent further damage.
The offense was also frustrating at first. They couldn’t get much going against starter Zach Littell (5 2/3 innings, five hits, one walk, six strikeouts, two runs, no earned runs). They had runners on second and third in the second inning and second and third in the third.
They rallied in the sixth inning. It started with a fielding error. Two batters later, Kevin Kiermaier reached on a throwing error by the third baseman, and Tyler Heinemann reached on a throwing error by the catcher while running to first base on a strikeout, putting runners on second and third.
The Tampa Bay bench pulled Littell and brought up Shawn Armstrong. The Toronto lineup pounded Armstrong. Four straight batters reached base, starting with George Springer’s double to left-center field, and the Rays quickly scored four runs and closed the gap to 5-4.
The opportunity came again in the seventh, and this time it started with a fielding error. Wit Merrifield reached on an error by the shortstop, putting runners on first and second with no outs.
On the next at-bat, Kiermeyer hit a fly ball to left field. Left fielder Harold Ramirez’s throw was a little shallow, and Merrifield was forced to tag up at third.
Ramirez’s throw was surprisingly accurate to home plate. Merrifield reached for home plate to avoid the catcher’s tag, but Betancourt was quicker. The tag was so accurate that the Toronto bench gave up on challenging the video review.
In the eighth inning, leadoff hitter Santiago Espinal led off with a double to left field. The Toronto bench scrambled to tie the game, bringing in Cam Ethan to pinch-hit.
The effort was not in vain. With runners on second and third, reliever Pete Fairbanks threw a wild pitch to Guerrero Jr. that allowed Ethier to come home and tie the game. Ryu’s loss was complete.안전놀이터
It didn’t end there. Fairbanks’ pitches weren’t quite right. A walk and a sacrifice loaded the bases, and Merrifield got a push ball to make it 6-5.
The goddess of victory would not allow it to end there. In the bottom of the ninth, closer Jordan Romano crumbled. She gave up back-to-back singles to tie the game.
With runners on first and second, Caminero hit a grounder to shortstop that would have been a double play, but Tampa Bay was able to overturn the play with a video review.
The video review ended up being the game-changing call. With runners on second and third, Lowe’s hard-hit ball hit the inside of the third base foul line for the final out.