Scorecard for April 22th: Orioles at Blue Jays - Gm 1 - Mirror, Mirror on the Wall...

Summary:

In the 5th Gibbons thought Gonzalez was using something to scuff the ball that he had secreted away inside his glove somewhere - and in the middle of the inning he went out and asked the Umpires to check it out.

As the cameras came back they were doing that - and found nothing.  It was a pitchers duel at that point but as I noted in the scorecard - it might have been a tell that the Jays were worried they couldn't hit him. The battery was seen laughing about it - and the Baltimores hit their 3 runs in their next at-bats.

RA Dickey thought that the Umpire Seth Buckminster, was squeezing him in the 6th, and it seemed to continue in the 7th.

In the sixth the Baltimores hit a 3 run homer and then batted around, filling the bases which Dickey barely working his way out of it.

To be fair to the Umpire (if not the official scorer), the inning did start with a bloop double that landed between Reyes and Cabrera in shallow left. If Cabrera had taken charge of his position he likely would have made the catch. Both players seemed to give up on the play at the last moment - both thinking that the other had it. An Error in attitude perhaps - but it's hard to score something like that an actual error as the official scorer I expect. I would have though - playing the whole game means you play every advantage on every play - and then that kind of stuff never happens.

But if Dickey's suspicion about the Umpire's strike zone was so in the top of the sixth; then the Ump seems to have been squeezing the other pitcher too in the bottom of the frame. It was in the 6th as well when Gonzalez gave up his 3 run homer - and the Jays came within one batter of batting around too.

In the 7th Dickey gave up a base hit followed by a double that would have scored the run if not for the ground rule (hopped the fence in CF). That was it for the Starter - Game tied 3-3.

In the Jay's eighth, the inning mirrored the Jays sixth - but this time they completed the mirror of the mirror inside the mirror - and hit a second 3 run homer to make it 3-9.

In the ninth Gibbons started to see the mirror of the mirror inside the mirror happening for the Orioles - and sent out his pitching coach to tell Esmil Rogers to stop trying to hit the corners with a 6 run lead - and just throw fast/slow on the plate.

That was what the battery did at any rate --- and it broke the mirror. Two shallow Fly balls off changes, right down the middle ended the game.

Jays won with 9 runs to the Orioles 3.

They do it again for two more nights.


Check out the key plays in this game at the scorecard:

Internet Baseball Scorecard - A DIY html baseball scoresheet for scorekeeping baseball games in Blogger - April 22th: Orioles at Blue Jays - Gm 1: http://internetbaseballscorecard2013.blogspot.ca/2014/04/april-22th-orioles-at-blue-jays-gm-1.html



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