Rays 6, Blue Jays 3: Five Unearned Runs on Three Errors is Arguably Too Many Unearned Runs on Too Many Errors

Not pictured: Ricky Romero dying inside

Aside from Jose Bautista's 43rd home run of the season, a two-run lined shot into the left field seats, this game was nightmarish. Consider the bottom of the first, an inning marred by two errors, and a non-error that was nevertheless the single worst defensive play of this Blue Jays season, and there's a pretty high bar there. After Desmond Jennings lined out to short to open the home half of the inning, defensively wretched September call-up David Cooper managed to drop a B. J. Upton popup in foul territory. Upton singled softly to right, but Romero answered by striking out Evan Longoria with a pretty tasty curve. The inning should have been over at that point, of course, but wasn't, and then it should have been over again: Ben Zobrist grounded to short, only to see Mike McCoy throw one so egregiously into the dirt that I'm not even going to do a thing about David Cooper failing to scoop it, because this was a weird hop.


All of that is bad, really very bad, totally and completely bad, but then this happened. And it was worse. If the ball is going to fall in between two fielders, can't it at least look like this? 

That's a lot to ask, I realize, but really I would take anything over the perfectly ineffectual image of Kelly Johnson and Colby Rasmus both standing bolt upright while a ball neither of them called drops to the turf and rends in twain the heart and butt of young Ricky Romero, hapless victim in this shitty, shitty spectacle. When Zobrist reached on another McCoy error in the eighth, it seemed only thematically consistent that Johnny Damon, he of the short-style pants and ready ways (the pants are longer these days but the ways no less ready), would homer to right and close the book on Romero: 7 2/3 IP, 6H, 6 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 5 K.


There was a definite FMLness to Romero's countenance last night, and who could blame him? I know I won't.


KS