Blue Jays 7, Phillies 4 and Blue Jays 9, Red Sox 7: Jays Break Out the Bats on Mr. Sub Sports Bag Day, Keep Them Out For Lesser Holiday A Day Later

Have never liked the black uniforms; have always liked dingers. You can see the bind I'm in.

Cliff Lee's utterly ridiculous streak of thirty-four consecutive innings without allowing a run -- the man allowed a grand total of one run in June, by the way -- came to an end in pretty dramatic fashion yesterday, as the Blue Jays thundered to a 7-4 win powered by three home runs in the eighth, from Eric Thames, who fills me with hope, Jose Bautista, who fills me with pride, and Edwin Encarnacion, who fills me with stomach cramps but it's not his fault. Had Jo-Jo been able to keep it together for like a second longer, he totally would have picked up a win over Cliff Lee, which would probably have been the coolest thing ever, but nevertheless, a big day! And even bigger because it all came on Mr. Sub Sports Bag Day. 


Mr. Sub Sports Bag Day has been an annual occurrence for pretty much as long as anums have occurred. For those of you not familiar with this whole situation, Mr. Sub are the purveyors of seriously the worst possible sandwiches, and I am not being stuck up about that. I enjoy Subway. Quizno's can be good. But Mr. Sub can never, ever be good. In my experience, Mr. Sub is a dank pit of strangely wet meat, genuinely questionable vegetables, and injudiciously applied condiments. I hate it and it is awful. But their sports bags, given away at Blue Jays games annually, serve a pretty interesting social function in the city: if you see someone on the streetcar or wherever, and they're rocking a Mr. Sub Sports Bag of any vintage at all, it is like "woah ok we've got a 500 here," which is to say, a citizen of the 500-level upper deck seats. I'm not hating, because that's where I usually sat, too; but generally speaking the 500s are a place for oddballs, drifters, and broke fanatics. The term "500s" applied to people outside the context of the stadium itself is a useful classification for, say, the kind of not-entirely-together but certainly not-entirely-untogether kind of slightly odd person you not uncommonly encounter at the public library, say. You know what I mean? Anyway, these people, this broader meaning of "500s," very, very often are in possession of Mr. Sub Sports Bags when you see them doing their thing, and yesterday is the day all those people got new ones. Somewhere, I have like five.  


Then today things got pretty rad in Boston, too! Brandon Morrow was pretty OK for a bit; Jason Frasor wasn't, really; and "The Closer" Frank Francisco had me uttering foul oaths but ultimately struck out three in the ninth after allowing a leadoff single and a stolen base. Aaron Hill went three-for-five with a home run, and please please please let this be the start of a torrid second-half pace for Aaron Hill, because this has been brutal. Also, Travis Snider is back up, and he too went three-for-five with two doubles. Let this be real. OK?


KS