Brandon Morrow was in a grove tonight as he showed the M's what can happen when don't jerk him around as he struck 5 straight M's in a row after getting the first two batters out on ground balls and he retired the first 8 batters he faced 11 of the first 12 batters and striking out 6 before Mike Carp singled to extend his hit streak to 17 games but then Morrow struck out Casper Wells to end the fourth and give Morrow 7 strike outs. Then he struck out the last two batters in the fifth and then struck out the first batter in the sixth to give him 10 strike outs while only facing 18 batters but then it all unraveled for Morrow as he walked Ichiro and then Franklin Gutierrez doubled him home followed by another walk. This was followed by Morrow's 11K of the evening and that was followed by Casper Wells being hit by a pitch to load the bases but ended up striking out the side as he struck out Trayvon Robinson to give him 12Ks of the night and he finished 6 innings given up a run on 3 hits and walking two.
While the Jays got three hits off the M's starter Blake Beavan first time through the order as Bautista had a single and the No. 9 hitter Jose Molina had a single but it was the gift that M's catcher Josh Bard gave the Jays as was crouching not low enough during the game and it hurt Beaven as it looked like he had thrown strike three looking past Edwin Encarnacion but instead it was called a ball on a 0 and 2 count which lead to Beavan leaving the next pitch up in the zone and Edwin went yard with it as he now has 12 homers on the season to give the Jays a 1-0 lead. With Molina's single on the Jays started their second time through the order which started with a Yunel Escobar single and after a double play by Thames Jose Bautista walked so U had runners on the corners for Adam Lind and he went yard with his 22Nd homer of the season a three run bomb to give the Jays a 4-0 lead which was followed by Edwin being hit by a pitch but then was caught stealing to end the third innings. it continued in the fourth was Colby Rasmus leading off the inning was his second homer as a Blue Jay and 13 of the season so that 5 of the first 6 batters in the lineup reached base the second time around with the exception being Eric Thames who saw his 8 game hitting streak is over as he went 0 for 3 with a walk and he had hit .429 during the streak (12 for 28) with 3 homers, 5 RBIs, 2 walks, 6Ks, and a .450 obp. So for the seventh inning Jessie Listch came in and a walk a batter but did not out of the inning after have two errors behind him and one allowed Jack Wilson to reach when Brett Lawrie had a throwing error to first but then Ichiro hit into a double play to end the inning as he only had one hit in the whole series. While Casey Janssen and Frank Francisco both had 1-2-3 innings to close out the Jays 5-1 victory and one of the more surprising things is that Jose Bautista is still arguing when his strike zone is squeezed as he was called out on strikes his last two plate appearances and right now he is two homers and ten RBIs off last years pace but is still batting over 40 points higher than last season.
The Brett Lawrie effect in Seattle was amazing as it sounded like a home game for the Jays as the Jays were being cheered more than the M's and when Eric Thames took a seat in the crowd after going into the crowd to catch a ball at he actual caught there were all Jays fans around him. Also in the three game series at the beginning of the season there were a total of just over 41,000 fans in the stands while for this three games series there were over 79,000 fans which is 38,000 more and 3,000 less than double the April appearance which is simply amazing.
Jays take 2 of 3 from the M's and now head to meet the A's to give them the same treatment they gave us in T.O.
Tom Mehegan
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