Blue Jays 5, Yankees 3: Ricky Romero, Yankee Killer

On the whole, the night went way better than you would think from this picture. 

I am not about to look this up, but it seems to me Ricky Romero has pitched some pretty great games against the New York Yankees, and if we assume that that impression is accurate, then we can add last night's solid outing to that list of things that might have happened. Two runs over six innings with seven strikeouts? I will take that literally every time. And the way he worked out of a bases-loaded, nobody-out jam in the fifth, forcing a weak Teixeira pop-up to short and getting Alex Rodriguez to ground into a 6-4-3 double, that was roughly as tremendous as it was improbable. He was also nearly murdered (well, man-slaughtered, I guess) by a Teixeira liner but made the grab. Casey Janssen got into trouble with walks to Gardner and Teixeira in the seventh, but struck out A-Rod to end the inning, so all was immediately forgiven. Did I love it when Octavio "Don't Ask" Dotel walked two more in the eighth? Of course not, no, but he did strike out Jeter in a key at-bat before Jon Rauch came in and got the final four outs on eight pitches. That I loved.  


And perhaps you noticed that Jose Bautista belted his league-leading ninth home run last night, curling it around the pole in left in such a way that it afforded the haters just enough time to will it foul before their hateful hopes were dashed against the shores of the extent to which Baustista rakes? That's something I noticed. I also noticed that, for the second game in a row, Bautista made a baserunning error that produced a run. That is when you know everything is clicking. Here's what happened this time: with Rajai Davis on third (he'd stolen it like it wasn't even a thing that was hard to do), and Rivera batting, Bautista took off from first early, just basically screwing up the old ohshitthrowittosecond--nowaitshitthrowithome play that the Blue Jays are apparently sticking with.  But Yankee reliever David Robertson botched the throw, Bautista was safe, and Davis scored easily. When Rivera singled to left, Bautista pushed his luck further by trying to score. The throw totally beat him, but he managed to evade the tag with either the best or worst slide I have ever seen (I am still trying to come to terms with it). May I add that Bautista is currently rocking a .372/.542/.795/1.337 with 9 home runs, 28 walks, and 25 runs scored, and may I further add that every one of those numbers is league-leading? May I, haters? Oh, thank you for allowing me to point that out. It is most gracious of you. 


Also, let's hear it for J. P. Arencibia, who hit his fourth home run of the season last night, and who is totally going to be the starting catcher for years. He is going to be at least fine. Good for him, good for us. Everybody wins.


Finally, Robinson Cano scares the hell out of me. It is indecent that he hits the ball that hard and plays second base. Indecent.


KS