Instant Reaction: Blue Jays pummeled by the Orioles

The Toronto Blue Jays’ hopes of winning the Golden Grapefruit may have declined a bit on Tuesday.

They played fellow bird team, the Baltimore Orioles at Baltimore’s Spring Training home. It didn’t go well, as the Blue Jays fell 8-2 to move to 14-10-1 this Spring Training. As of Tuesday evening, there’s a three-way tie for the Grapefruit League lead, along with the Boston Red Sox and their 13-9 record and the Pittsburgh Pirates, who have a 14-10 record. Let’s dig into what happened on Tuesday.

In the bottom of the second, centre fielder Cedric Mullins hit a solo home run, giving the Orioles a 1-0 lead. In the bottom of the third, Ryan O’Hearn hit a solo home run to make it 2-0, followed by a three-run shot by you guessed it, Ryan Mountcastle.

The Orioles added two more runs in the bottom of the four, getting RBI singles from Jordan Westburgh and Tyler O’Neill. However, Bichette hit his fourth home run of the spring to make it 7-1.

In the top of the seventh, Leo Jiménez hit an RBI single to score Michael Stefanic, cutting the Orioles lead to 7-2. However, Mountcastle hit his second home run of the game in the bottom of the seventh, giving us the final score of 8-2.

Takeaways…

Last season, Bo Bichette hit four home runs in 336 plate appearances. Tonight, he matched his home run total in just 46 plate appearances. It’s only Spring Training, but that’s a great sign.

Other than the home run, it was a rather quiet day for the Blue Jays’ bats though as they totaled just four hits. Ernie Clement, Leo Jiménez, and Michael Stefanic each hit singles while they reached base five times and struck out 13 times.

The pitching wasn’t particularly good either, especially at the start of the game. Eric Lauer gave up five earned runs in three innings and gave up three home runs. Ryan Yarbrough gave up two earned runs in his inning and a third. Thankfully, pitching settled down from there.

Both Johnatan Lavallee and Josh Walker pitched a scoreless third of an inning. Jacob Burnes struck out a batter in his inning of work while new signee Justin Bruihl gave up an earned run and struck out two. Kevin Gowdy struck out a batter in his inning of work.

The Jays are off on Wednesday but return to action on Thursday as they return to Dunedin to host the Tampa Bay Rays. Yariel Rodríguez is expected to start for the Jays.