That game had everything. Good pitching. Timely hits. Good defense. And stuff to argue about.

In the eighth, Mason Fluharty started the inning with a walk and a single. In comes Louis Varland. He gets:

A wild pitch and a Bryan Reynolds ground out, scoring one and moving the, then, tying run to third. Ten pitches.A much needed strikeout. Three pitches.And a Jhostynxon Garcia ground out to end the inning. No I didn’t just make up that name. Yes I copied and pasted it. One pitch.

Great job by Varland to get out of the inning with us still winning. And he used 14 pitches.

The Jays scored three in the bottom of the inning, With Yariel Rodriguez warming up.

Double off the left field wall (right on the foul line) by Ernie Clement. There was a lot of discussion, on the field, about whether it was a homer or a double.Jesús Sánchez also doubled, to the wall in right.Brandon Valenzuela came up and tried to bunt, but, after a couple of attempts, Myles Straw (who was pinch running for Sanchez) noticed the Pirates third baseman was come down the third base line on the bunt attempt and stole third, being the 3B back to the bag. Valenzuela ended up walking.Andrés Giménez after I said ‘hitting great with RISP, wasn’t a skill set’, struck out.George Springer doubled down the right field line. The ball got stuck between the padding and a mesh ‘window’, giving us PTSD from last year’s playoffs. Both runners scored.Vladimir Guerrero ground out and Daulton Varsho struck out.

We were up 6-2 and I figured John would go with Rodriguez, to save Varland some bullets for the weekend. If Yariel can’t get us out of the inning with a four-run lead, he shouldn’t be on the team.

They left Varland in. And he got through the ninth without a runner getting on. Two strikeouts and a ground out, on 17 pitches. 31 pitches on the night. I’d guess he won’t be available tomorrow. Maybe Sunday.

Kevin Gausman was terrific. 6.2 innings, 6 hits, 1 earned, 1 walk and 8 strikeouts. He was in control all the way. Or at least until he let the first two on in the seventh, but after getting two John came out to talk to him and apparently, Kevin didn’t make the case for staying in and Mason Fluhardy came in for the last out of the inning.

Mason had less luck in the eight, but we covered that above.

We got three in the third inning. Springer reached on catcher’s interference. He’s great at that. Vlad singled (George hustled to third). Varsho reached on a Spencer Horwitz error, scoring one. Kazuma Okamoto struck out, but Yohendrick Piñango doubled home two more. He crushed it, 114.8 mph. Clement struck out and Sanchez flied out (but they would help later).

And that was all our scoring until the eighth.

Bubba Chandler gave us some trouble early, but seemed to tire. I’m sure it is hard on a body to throw 100 mph.

We only managed five hits, but four of them were doubles. But took seven walks (and fifteen strikeouts). Okamoto and Gimenez were the only two in the lineup not to reach base (and they had seven strikeouts between them).

Jays of the Day: Gausman (0.19 WPA), Varland (0.19), Varsho (0.12) and Vlad (0.11).

Other Award: Okamoto (-0.12). He did have an amazing defensive play.

Tomorrow we have game two with the Pirates. A 3:00 Eastern start time. We get to see if the Jays can extend their win streak to four games against Paul Skenes (6-3, 2.62), perhaps the best pitcher in baseball. Patrick Corbin (1-1, 4.23) has the job of keeping the game close, so the Jays can beat up on the Pirate relievers.

And, just a heads up, Sunday’s game is an early start, 12:15 Eastern, so as not to interfere we the Leaf playoff game? No that’s not it. I don’t know why it is early.