Jose Bautista Takes A Fastball To The Head; Blue Jays Blown Out By Orioles
The big story from tonight’s Blue Jays-Orioles game should probably have been the 4-12 blowout that Brandon Morrow and the Jays suffered at the hands of the AL East basement-dwellers, but a scary incident in the 3rd inning took the focus away from the on-field results at the end of the night, as Jose Bautista was hit in the head by a pitch and subsequently removed from the game.
The Blue Jays slugger was facing Orioles’ rookie Jake Arrieta with the team down 0-4 when the incident occurred. Arrieta went with a fastball up and in on a 0-2 count to Bautista, but lost his location and hit Bautista on the helmet, sending him down in a heap. It was an unnerving moment as the trainers and John Farrell came on the field to check on Bautista, and fortunately he was able to exit the field on his own. Normally, when something like this happens, the first thing you’re concerned about isn’t if, but how long the player might be out for with a variety of issues that could come up, including concussion syndromes and what not…
…but this is Jose Bautista we’re talking about here, and apparently the HBP isn’t going to cause him to miss any time at all. He went through a series of tests after being removed from the game (as a precaution), and is expected to be in the lineup tomorrow. So, it looks like the Jays dodged a bit of a bullet there, after all.
Unfortunately, they weren’t so lucky so far as the actual game itself, with Brandon Morrow unable to get out of the 4th inning in what you could probably call his worst start of the season. After a quick 1-2-3 inning to start the game, Morrow simply imploded on the mound, allowing 6 earned runs (7 total) on 9 hits, including a pair of homers to Orioles’ shortstop, JJ Hardy. Morrow had come into this start backed by a string of solid outings going back to June, but he simply didn’t have much out there tonight, needing 90 pitches to struggle into the 4th inning, and removed after giving up a pair of homers that blew the game open for the Orioles. He did manage to strike out 5 batters, but that isn’t going to count for much in games like this when your stuff is far too hittable.
It didn’t help matters much that the ‘pen couldn’t hold the score there when called upon early either, with Shawn Camp allowing 3 runs over 1.1 IP, and newcomer Wil Ledezma allowing a pair over 2.0 innings of work. Janssen and Francisco would sandwich those innings with scoreless outings from each of them, but it was a moot point by then, with the game well out of hand.
With Bautista out, the only offensive bright spots for the Jays came from Adam Lind and Aaron Hill: the former followed Bautista’s HBP with a 3-run home run that got the team back into the game at 3-4, and the latter followed it in the next inning with his 5th home run of the season, a solo shot that brought the score to 4-7, but was too little, too late at that point.
Despite the loss, I’m sure those in Jaysland will be relieved that the team didn’t suffer an even more significant loss tonight in Jose Bautista. These are games that the Jays are expected to win, however, and the team will try to get back on track tomorrow, with Ricky Romero taking on Alfredo Simon on the mound.
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