Blue Jays 3, Rays 1: Oh Hell Yes

Note the blue stitching on the glove that reads "Romero" and which is entirely correct

Verlander vs. Weaver is a hard act to follow, but Ricky Romero against David Price had the potential to be such a battle of such lefties, of such lefties, that I must admit that I went into this one especially excited. Also exciting: the Blue Jays entered the series only a game-and-a-half behind the Rays for third in the AL East, and while both teams are so far back of the Yankees and Red Sox that that shouldn't matter at all, and in fact does not matter at all, it is still totally matterful to me, in that: the greatest indignity of the J. P. Ricciaridi era was when, after years of being told the Blue Jays just couldn't compete with the Red Sox and Yankees because Toronto was a small market (despite being the seventh largest city in North America, with broad support across a nation of more than thirty million people, arguably the richest owners in all of baseball, and a league-leading payroll less than a decade before Ricciardi took the reigns), Tampa Bay came out of nowhere and totally blew the doors off of everybody in the AL East, and that sucked. A lot. Good for the Rays, by all means: they are crafty and clever and neat, and despite how awful Jonah Keri's book about them was, they are a pretty interesting organization, one that should probably move because they play in a pit and nobody likes them, but whatever(s). My problem is not with the Rays; my problem is with being worse than the Rays, because that is inexcusable and unacceptable in every way. The Toronto Blue Jays should be better than the Tampa Bay Rays every single year. And maybe this year they are? They've still got a ton of games head-to-head, and that's probably what will decide where these two also-ran teams fall out relative to one another, but right now, anyway, we're closing in! 


Anyway, last night's game was a total honey. Ricky Romero got into and out of trouble early, loading the bases with nobody out in the second on a hit batter and two walks, but struck out a pair and got Sean Rodriguez to ground out to Bautista. There were no hits that inning, and in fact only one off of Romero all night, a Desmond Jennings solo shot in the sixth. That Jon Rauch came on and allowed more hits in his lone inning of work than Romero allowed in the previous eight should surprise literally no one, and whoever wrote the "Romero and Rauch Combine for Three-Hitter" headline I saw somewhere should give his head a shake. Also if you enjoy home runs by Jose Bautista and Yunel Escobar as much as I do, then you, like me, were in luck last night.


So yeah: Ricky Romero's ERA is down to 2.98; the Blue Jays have finally beaten David Price, who came into the game 8-0 against them; and Toronto now trails Tampa Bay by a mere half-game, which is utterly meaningless unless you are still working out your personal issues with J. P. Ricciardi after all these years. Good stuff!


KS