Victory #81

Monday, December 29 2014 @ 12:22 AM EST

Contributed by: #2JBrumfield

The Toronto Blue Jays guaranteed 2014 would not go down in the books as a losing season on the evening of Wednesday, September 24 as they continued their four-game series against the Seattle Mariners.

Mark Buehrle was on the hill looking to add to his 194 innings pitched on the season.


Opposing Buehrle on the mound was Seattle rookie Tijuan Walker in what turned out to be a terrific pitching duel.

Austin Jackson is retired for the first out of the game after grounding out to short.

Mark Buehrle struck out Dustin Ackley looking to end the sixth inning to hit the 200-inning mark once again.

Munenori Kawasaki gets ready to high-five after walking and scoring all the way from first base on a bloop single to center field.

Ryan Goins stands at second base after his two-out blooper off Walker cashed in Kawasaki in the bottom of the eighth inning. Mariners shortstop Chris Taylor looks on in disappointment.

Mark Buehrle waves to the crowd after going eight-plus innings, allowing just three hits and a walk while striking out 10.

James Jones pinch-runs for Chris Taylor, whose lead-off single in the ninth chased Buehrle from the game. Jones was 27-for-28 in the stolen base department and he was hoping to make that 28-for-29.

In the third replay review of the night, Jones was ruled out on a pick-off throw as Adam Lind applies the tag.

After cleaning up the mess at first with that pick-off throw, Aaron Sanchez was able to focus on the task at hand by striking out Austin Jackson on a 97 MPH fastball and inducing Dustin Ackley to ground out to third to preserve a 1-0 victory.


Mark Buehrle got the win to improve to 13-10 while Tijuan Walker suffered the complete-game loss to fall to 2-3. Aaron Sanchez sewed things up for his third save in a game that finished just one minute short of the two-hour mark despite three replay challenges. The first challenge involved a ground-rule double by the Mariners' Corey Hart which landed just on the right field foul line in the top of the third inning. The second had to do with a Dalton Pompey bid for a bunt single to first but he was ruled to have been tagged out by Seattle first baseman Kendrys Morales to begin the eighth inning.

This game ultimately prevented the Mariners from going to the post-season. They won the final game of this four-game set against Toronto before returning home to sweep the Angels in three straight but they finished one game back of Oakland for the final wild-card spot. After the way the Mariners swept the Jays in Seattle back in August, I was glad to see the Jays gain a measure of revenge by winning the third game of the four-game series.

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