You can’t win ‘em all: Blue Jays 6, Phillies 3

Today should have been about Adonis Medina and his long awaited arrival in Philadelphia. He’s been marinating in the minor leagues forever, vacillating between the top of prospect lists and the middle of the table. With injuries decimating the rotation, Medina was called upon to make a pretty important start on the team’s calendar and didn’t fare great, but he also wasn’t horrible.

His first two innings were rocky. He gave up two runs at the start of the first inning, walking Cavan Biggio to start the game, then allowing a double to Bo Bichette to put men on second and third. The nerves showed up during the next batter’s turn, as Medina balked in the first run, an inauspicious start to his career. He got the batter out on a pop-up to Alec Bohm, but allowed an RBI single to Lourdes Gurriel that made the score 2-0. Though he would throw a ton of pitches over the next few innings, he would settle down and only allow those two runs over four innings. Like I said - not great, but not horrible.

In the bottom of the first, the Phillies got one back when Bohm took a two-out walk and was driven home by Didi Gregorius.

Facing Taijuan Walker, the Phillies’ offense was largely held in check after that, not able to generate much of anything.

That score of 2-1 held through much of the game until the sixth when Heath Hembree entered in relief of a surprisingly effective Brandon Workman. Was it too much to ask for back-to-back good appearances?

Yes.

Hembree continued to make his case for being left off of a potential playoff roster by coming in the sixth inning and giving up a double right away to Gurriel. He’d get Randal Grichuk to ground out, pushing Gurriel to third, then Vladito also grounded out. Joe Panik would walk, then Jonathan Davis would lash a two-out, two run double that scored both runners and put the Jays up 4-1. Amazingly, Hembree was allowed to start the seventh and gave up a triple to Bichette, then a long home run to Teoscar Hernandez, finishing off any chance at a comeback from the Phillies, something we’ll call a “Hembree Special”.

There was a pulse detected in the bottom of the seventh when the Phillies loaded the bases with no one out, bringing up Bryce Harper. Harper would strike out, then exit the game.

Bohm would come up next and single in Quinn and Rafael Marchan, but was erased on an unlucky bounce when he tried to go to second on an error by Panik.

The threat was ended when Gregorius was erased on a hard lineout to end the inning, and effectively, the game.

After the game, Joe Girardi said that Harper had back stiffness and was day-to-day.