2021 Game One-Sixty-Two: Blue Jays 12, Orioles 4

 

everybody up

Just before first pitch Sunday, the television broadcast showed Bo Bichette and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. holding one another in as tender and loving an embrace as you are ever likely to see: it was deep, and low, and real. We should all be so lucky as to be held like that by someone in our lives, someone with whom we share real intimacy, or a deep familial bond. For Gurriel and Bichette, it is that they play baseball together, and are friends. The camera stayed with it an awfully long time, and Dan Shulman seemed legitimately moved; I know I was. It was clear to me long before game time that whatever happened Sunday afternoon, this has been, for me, the most wonderful Toronto Blue Jays season and team I have known, the one that has meant the most to me, in no small measure because I have been able to share it with my family in ways I would not at all have anticipated (the U11 fireballer, charging hard towards U13, and the U5 tee-baller with left-handed power to all fields, alongside the seasoned veterans of the squad [we've been hit by a few pitches, but we're alright]). The long moment between Bichette and Gurriel didn't create this feeling -- it was far from the first of its kind we've seen throughout this lovely summer -- but it brought us into it again.          

When things did finally get underway, and Hyun-Jin Ryu, despite his recent troubles, got a groundout to Bichette at short on the first pitch of the game, and struck out both Mountcastle and Hays to retire the side in order, it felt like, okay: this might actually go pretty well today. Little did I expect that we would be doing tiny home run dances the rest of the afternoon (and into the evening) at what seemed like five-minute intervals: Springer's twentieth in the first, Vladdy's forty-eighth on a rocket to right field in the second, Springer's grand slam in the third, Semien's record-setting forty-fifth in the fifth  . . . in the last few days it had been the bottom of the order that had really kept things going, but in game one-sixty-two it was the biggest Blue Jays bats that were the biggest Blue Jays bats. The Orioles starter, Bruce Zimmerman, was chased in the first. Meanwhile, Hyun-Jin Ryu did exactly what you'd hope he might, with five good innings before handing it off to (I do not mean to be uncharitable when I say) "the secondary relievers," exactly like you would expect if you were setting up for a Game 163, should things break our way, where Mayza and Romano would be fresh-as-could-be, ready to relieve José Berríos when the time came (if the time came). 

But the Yankees walked off the Rays 1-0 in Yankee Stadium on an Aaron Judge infield single, and the Red Sox came from behind in Washington for the second day in a row (our old friend Raven has apologized on behalf of the Nationals bullpen, and I have accepted). I held out some slim hope that the great Juan Soto would run into one for the Nationals in the bottom of the ninth, but instead he made the season's last out. I honestly can't even say I was too disappointed by any of it: by all means, my preference would be for the Blue Jays to have not only made the playoffs, but to have won the whole thing, but it is not my preference by as much as you might think, or as much as would even be sensible. Though I am of course fundamentally and unalterably romantic (an earnest questioner: "Professor Frye, would you agree that your conception of literature as you present it here is somewhat Romantic?" Professor Frye: "Oh, it's entirely Romantic"), I do not mean to be romantic but instead eminently pragmatic when I say in all sincerity that I am very much A Regular Season Guy; that's where the real pleasure of the game lies for me, in the dailyness of it for no fewer than six months out of the year. The Blue Jays were in the playoffs with misleading regularity when I was a kid, and won the World Series twice before I was old enough to work anything other than a paper route; years ago, decades ago, I have already had the maximum possible experience of playoff baseball -- and it's very much it's own thing, and quite a thing, but it's not the promise of it, or even the potential of it, that keeps me here. I'm much more content with the way this season ended, surely, than of the players involved, who seemed, to a man, proud of what they'd done this summer, but awfully sad that this is where it ends for them. "We became the best team in baseball," Marcus Semien told us when it was over. "But it was a tick too late."

KS

2021 Game One-Sixty-One: Blue Jays 10, Orioles 1

 

Vladdy: got another one

No sooner had I settled into the bleachers near the tennis court that would serve on this fine October afternoon as the site of a roller skating lesson for a leading member of the U11 set (roller skating is high-level cross-training for baseball; I invite all you U11 coaches to look into it for your young charges), and opened my phone to the MLB application through which I enjoy not just play-by-play data (which is free!) but also radio broadcasts (a gift beyond price, almost free), than I realized I had already missed it: Vladimir Guerrero's forty-seventh home run of the year, a towering shot that made it nearly to Tony Fernandez, both to where his name is written on the Level of Excellence just above the second deck, and also to heaven, itself a Level of Excellence ("R.I.P. Tony Fernandez, My Dad and I loved you," as it said once on Joey Votto's hat). Happily, there was much more: Téo hit his thirty-second home run later that same inning; George Springer, who it seems has barely even been in the lineup this year, somehow hit his twentieth in the second; Bo Bichette got his twenty-ninth a little later (I mean, why not); and Danny Jansen got another one, a two-run shot in the fifth. Ten runs on fourteen hits, when it was all said and done, and unsurprisingly another great start from young Alek Manoah, who struck out ten and allowed only a hit and a walk for just one run through seven. Such was the depth and profundity of the trouncing (poor Baltimore; poor Cedric Mullins, especially [he seems neat, and should not be made to suffer]) that the only reliever the Blue Jays sent out there at all was Ross Stripling, who took it the rest of the way. This means all-hands on deck for the season finale, and we might well need them, as Hyun-Jin Ryu, love him though we do, has had command issues of late, and it is not at all hard to imagine a scenario where we need to get him out both quickly and in a hurry and also at once. Would I be a little freaked out to see Jordan Romano pitching, say, the fourth? Certainly, and yet it might be very much the thing to do. One hopes, of course, for an easy win like yesterday, but it is seems like too much to ask.   

With the Yankees thumped by the Rays and booed tremendously in Yankee Stadium yesterday, and both Boston and Seattle winning squeakers late last night, we need a Blue Jays win and a loss from either the Yankees or Red Sox for this afternoon's game to be anything other than the last of the Blue Jays season. The weirdnesses set to unfold should there be a three-or-even-four-way tie are pretty great, but one that is particularly notable, I think, is that in a four-way tie, the Yankees would be given the choice (indeed they have already been given it) as to whether they would prefer to play the Red Sox in Fenway of the Blue Jays in the SkyDome, and they have chosen Boston; which is interesting; which is interesting. 

But for anything at all like that to happen, these Blue Jays need one last win, their ninety-first of this strange and wonderful season, a season I have loved as much as any other. I sure hope they get it! 

KS 

2021 Game One-Sixty: Blue Jays 6, Orioles 4

 

the way the crowd started to stand? as they realized Biggio was
going to try to make it? all the way from first? I mean, forget about it

While I definitely could have done without the Orioles' four-run, bat-around eighth out of nowhere (it escalated quickly!), otherwise, what a night: a three-run home run for the weirdly-productive-of-late Danny Jansen, two hits apiece for Santiago Espinal (missed you, Santiago; missed you, bro) and Corey Dickerson, and a huge three-for-four from the returning Cavan Biggio, who darted around the bases all the way from first to score on a George Springer infield single to second. This was an Alfredo Griffinesque feat of baserunning, which is always the most welcome kind (to me [and to Bill James, in The New Bill James Historical Abtract]). Steven Matz's two runs on six hits an a walk in seven complete is such a great final line for a remarkable season for him (they let him wear the home run jacket!). Obviously pitcher wins are not a statistic that we place a whole lot of value in anymore, and rightly so, but "Steven Matz, fourteen-game winner" is nevertheless pretty wild, right? Cimber had as much trouble in relief as I think we've seen from him all year, or rather since we picked him up (he has been so good), but Jordan Romano threw thirty-two pitches in just under two innings of work to close it out not unticklishly but most welcomely. Let us hope, then, that Manoah goes sufficiently deep into this afternoon's game, and the bats bop to such a degree, that we don't need to use the better pieces of the Blue Jays bullpen to handle today's work, and can have everybody ready for multiple innings should Ryu run into trouble early on Sunday (I love watching Hyun-Jin Ryu pitch but one never knows, does one; one never truly knows). Checking in with the (Home Hardware) out-of-town scoreboard (my phone), we see that the Yankees lost, the Mariners lost, and the Red Sox won, so for all of the scenario-strangenesses that abound, the fundamentals (a crutch for the talentless?) of the Blue Jays' situation remain unchanged: win today, and we're still in it tomorrow. It looks like I'll be taking in much of today's game chilling in the shade whilst a roller-skating lesson unfolds, and I would encourage you to seek out listening conditions at least that pleasant, if you are in any kind of position to do so, though I acknowledge that very few are so blessed. 

KS

2021 Game One-Fifty-Nine: Yankees 6, Blue Jays 2

 

things got exactly this bad

I don't know if I have said as much previously in these electronic pages, but a longstanding principle of mine as regards baseball (its watching; its playing; its simulation[s]) is that we don't worry about solo home runs. We just don't! I was pleased to read, earlier this season, that this is also very much the approach of Blue Jays pitching coach Pete Walker (a member of my closely-held 2003 Toronto Blue Jays and as such deserving of all entitlements membership in that august company affords him [to me]). So when, in last night's first inning, Aaron Judge hit a home run that I personally estimated at 450 feet but which StatCast soon thereafter had at 455 (who was first, though; who was first), I felt i) unworried and, ii) unhurried. Realistically, though, there does come a point where solo home runs do indeed become a problem, like for instance in the Yankees sixth, which went: homer (Rizzo), homer (Judge again), walk (Stanton), homer (Torres). And yet even then, those solo home runs had only put the Yankees ahead 3-2; was it not the walk and subsequent third (and non-solo!) home run that really took the wind out of everybody's sails? Man, what a weird one: the Yankees had six hits, and five of them were home runs, the sixth a little infield single in the ninth, shortly after another solo home run. Even the parts that went well for the Blue Jays were weird, like Vladdy ripping a double off the top of the wall, like the tippy-top of the wall, that somehow bounced back into play in a way that I have literally never seen before, and how many home runs have I seen at the SkyDome? Imagine the number! It was enough to score Bo Bichette, though, who has been doing way more than his share this week. What a player, this Bo Bichette: just a wild horse out there, as a recently dismissed member of the Fan 590 once said.

Poor Robbie Ray, you've got to say. I am pretty sure Dan Shulman said that this was only the second time in his career that Ray has allowed four home runs, and the first time was I think in 2016, when Ray had not yet attained his final form, and certainly wasn't in a huge game in a playoff push against Yankees, and in his final start of the season, trying to seal the deal on a Cy Young Award. On that note: I think he'll still probably get it, as the top two pitchers in the league this year both pitched in this series, and both, bafflingly, gave up five runs. That's baseball! Also baseball: the Red Sox somehow losing again at Camden Yards, which keeps things just close enough headed into the final weekend of the season. Am I right to say that, in the now twenty-eight years since Toronto last won the World Series, this is only the third time the Blue Jays have been in it going into the final weekend of the season? That it was a regular feature of the Blue Jays seasons of my youth, and that I totally took it for granted are facts too obvious to even bear mentioning, and yet here we are ("in my mentions"). Even if the Blue Jays take all three against the Orioles this weekend -- and I really hope they do, even if it proves playoff-fruitless, because a ninety-one-win season is awesome -- they're going to need a little help, both from the former Expos (the Nationals, who play Boston), I have seen it said, and the future Expos (the Rays, who play the Yankees). Nicely observed! But just as big a factor at this point are the Seattle Mariners, who play the Angels, who you cannot count on for anything whatsoever, other than for making Shohei Ohtani doubt his choices. It certainly seems as though the Yankees are going to take one of these Wild Card spots, and I will say that if the second does not fall to the Blue Jays, my sincere hope is that it goes to their 1977 expansion cousins, the Seattle Mariners, with whom we have long held kinship.

KS

2021 Game One-Fifty-Eight: Blue Jays 6, Yankees 5

A lively triptych

Bo Bichette's first home run against the Yankees Wednesday night gave him the single-season record for Blue Jays shortstops (over Tony Batista, you'd think), which is for sure neat, but it was his second -- to take the lead in the bottom of the eighth inning of what was both mathematically and in terms of a vibe pretty much (if not quite) an elimination game -- that made him an even cooler guy still. What a game for Bo! Three for four with two homers and a double? And some nifty play in the field? My goodness! After the game, Bo was asked about his approach to the (as-it-turns-out-crucial) eighth-inning at bat, and although one is accustomed to hearing answers to such questions fall along the lines of like "well, I was just trying to make solid contact, put the ball in play, etc" Bo chose another route, and was like yeah I was totally trying to hit a home run so I am super glad it worked out like that. José Berríos, you may well recall, was perfect through four innings before getting touched up for a pair in the fifth and one more in the sixth; Tim Mayza had some real tough luck giving up two in the seventh on a hit-by-pitch that was barely off the plate, some soft-contact, and a two-out, two-on, two-run single by Kyle Higashioka, of all people, on just the softest little liner a few steps too far for Bichette. The run that probably sticks in the Yankees craw way harder than either Bo Bichette home run, or Marcus Semien's forty-fourth of the year (hey that's an all-time AL/NL record for second baseman, no big deal), came on Vladdy's double passed a drawn-in infield (man I would not want to play "in" at third against Vladdy, even if he has been struggling of late) to score George Springer's ridiculous gift double that had dropped in between the left-fielder and shortstop who just looked at each as the ball was like *boop* betwixt them. Adam Cimber and Jordon Romano took us the rest of the way, and the SkyDome (or Rogers Centre; it is much the same) was about as loud as it can be with thirty-thousand people in it. 

What a treat this all was. I have said it a number of times already this season, I know, but with only four game left to play it is probably as safe as it has ever been to say that this was maybe the game of the season, and Bo Bichette's home run the moment? The first series back in Toronto was incredible, the three-game sweep of Oakland to move ahead of them was even better, and the four-games straight in Yankee Stadium set the Blue Jays up for the possibility of games as weighty as those we've seen this week; there has certainly been no shortage of wonderful games (and moments therein!), and that's just in the last little while. So maybe this was it? The last game where we'll feel like this before it's over? And yet it's Robbie Ray on the hill tonight, in his last start of the year, probably just one good start (not even one great start [though, I mean, let's do it]) from the AL Cy Young award, in a game that could leave us just one back of the Yankees for one of the two Wild Card spots with three to go (how Boston's account will stand, who knows, save heaven? [Hamlet reference]). Why wouldn't Robbie Ray strike out like ten guys tonight? What evidence is there that this is anything other than the likeliest outcome? Let's give it a try, at least, and then we'll figure the rest of it out this weekend.

KS

2021 Game One-Fifty-Seven: Yankees 7, Blue Jays 2

this part was fun

The changeup Giancarlo Stanton smoked to the second deck for the three-run homer that put this game out of reach was as low and as inside as any pitch you will ever see hit for a home run ever. It was utterly absurd. Until then, it had been a tight, tense game, as befitted the occasion (thirty thousand in the stands!), but after that it became the kind of night where you run out all the relievers you had sort of forgotten you even had, if we are being totally honest about which guys we remember having. It was pleasing, certainly, to see Hyun-Jin Ryu return to form, more or less: three runs in a little under five innings is not at all a bad outing given that he is freshly returned from the injured list, and also from getting creamed lately, and the Blue Jays apparent decision to run all over defensively dodgy catcher Gary Sanchez is one I support wholeheartedly, even if it did lead to Bo Bichette (who had two of the Blue Jays three hits) running very much into an out at third base (Bo was probably safe, the replays revealed, but the throw beat him to the bag by an awful lot). This was a really tough one! But at least the game sustained that wonderful, tight playoff feel until the U11 set had to turn in for the night; whatever happens after that is just fodder for the morning report. It is a minor miracle that the Red Sox were beaten by the one-hundred-and-six loss (so far!) Baltimore Orioles, leaving the Blue Jays still just one game out of the final Wild Card spot, but the Yankees are now three games in the clear, and it'll probably be tough to gain much ground on them once the weekend rolls around: although the Yankees will be playing Tampa Bay, they'll only kind of be playing Tampa Bay, who one assumes will mostly be offering generous days of leisure to their regulars and getting their rotation set for the Divisional Series. Also, though I am aware that Seattle beat Oakland late last night to move a half-game ahead of Toronto, I feel that that is really beside the point now, and I am completely unconcerned by it (perhaps this is folly?). The 87-70 Blue Jays are now one game out of the playoffs with five games to go, which probably means being still technically in the race until some point this weekend, at which point that'll be that, and I will thank them (in my heart, but also in these electronic pages) for a wonderful season that I have enjoyed as much as any baseball season in my many years of them (baseball seasons). And yet, with Jose Berrios on the mound tonight, and Robbie Ray going Thursday, I still can't help but think we have a decent shot at two out of three from the Yankees? It's Gerrit Cole tonight, but the Blue Jays have hit him, and may yet again. And one low-key gets the sense (doesn't one?) that Vladdy is about to really get a hold of a couple.  

KS

2021 Game One-Fifty-Six: Blue Jays 5, Twins 2

 

Bo Bichette's helmet has never once stayed on

I would like to begin by saying how pleasant I find it to watch the Minnesota Twins: Byron Buxton is arguably the most æsthetic active American League player (I can make no real claims about the National League and yet also I feel like show me your champion); Nick Gordon is so clearly related to Dee Gordon that I had to look it up and check (half-brother! "Flash" Gordon is their dad!); and Miguel Sano is so massive and uses such as disproportionately tiny bat that he looks like one of the mean sluggers from the Bugs Bunny baseball cartoon we all know and love. Their ballpark is lovely. Their uniforms are so clean. I am sorry that they had such a disappointing season. 

To the game itself, though: I definitely would not have picked Danny Jansen to be the one to hit the three-run home run that the put the Blue Jays out in front early (and also for good) Sunday afternoon, but this would only be further evidence of the extent to which I am a fool, because he really took that one for a ride! And George Springer's second home run in as many days suggests that perhaps his long struggles are now behind him? A little? Maybe? And Alek Manoah kept getting out of trouble with super well-timed double-play ground balls! And Mazya and Cimber and Romano held the fort with scoreless innings behind him! And and and! Cleary it would have been a whole lot cooler to win three or even four of these games in Minnesota -- especially as it turns out you can't count on the Red Sox for anything -- but these last two games of the series really felt necessary (not yet mathematically, but certainly emotionally), and so imagine my relief that we have won them. In the late game Sunday night (used to love the ESPN games; now I find them unwatchable?), the Yankees beat the Red Sox again, which is not exactly what we needed, but nevertheless leaves the Blue Jays one game behind Boston for the road Wild Card Spot, and two games behind New York for the home one. Boston's schedule the rest of the way is very soft (Baltimore, Washington) and so while one can of course hope for a sustained, week-long collapse, it seems unlikely. With three games against the Yankees, the Blue Jays task is tall this week, but the last time we needed to beat the Yankees, we took all four in Yankee Stadium, so who knows? If we come out of the Yankees series in even okay shape, that's actually probably coming out of the Yankees series in pretty good shape, as the Blue Jays have the Orioles coming in for the final weekend whereas the Yankees have to play Tampa (who, one hopes, will not just be resting their starters [though that is of course their well-earned entitlement {to which they are entitled}]). 

Obviously, my sincere hope is that the Blue Jays will play well enough in these final six games to snag a Wild Card spot free and clear, but if that is not in the cards, what I would like to see happen is the unlikely yet super enticing scenario outlined by poster "liljakeyplzandthnx," who notes that if the Blue Jays take two of three against the Yankees, the Yankees get swept by Tampa, Toronto goes one and two against Baltimore, the A's take two of three against Seattle and sweep Houston, the Mariners sweep the Angels, and Boston goes two and four, the American League Wild Card will end in a five-way tie, and if you check the the tie-breaker rules for a five-way, it is actually single-elimination バーチャファイター Virtua Fighter, specifically for Sega 32x. And I am here for it.  

KS

2021 Game One-Fifty-Five: Blue Jays 6, Twins 1

 

this was a base hit! Vladdy stood in awe of it!

First pitch came about an hour after it was scheduled, as New Westminster, British Columbia's Justin Morneau was rightly inducted into the Minnesota Twins Hall of Fame in a lengthy pre-game ceremony, surrounded by a gathering of thirty-four such Hall of Fame members, chaired by no less grand a presence than the treasured Rod Carew, now seventy-five ("I've got more action than my man John Woo / And I've got mad hits like I was Rod Carew," a poet once poesied). Once things got underway, I found this one a little tense! Robbie Ray clearly did not have his best command, as his fastball that usually (and importantly!) nicks the inside corner against right-handed batters was consistently off the plate and taken for a ball, but it is a testament to just how great Robbie Ray has been this year that, pitching sub-optimally, his line on the night is nevertheless but a run on three hits over six. George Springer more or less handled the rest, making a tremendous snow-cone catch on a ball ripped to the warning track to save runs early, and hitting a key two-run home run in the seventh off Barraclough (they pronounce it Bear Claw! like Newman ordering cookies at the coffee shop!) to put this one away. This more than made up for some baffling baserunning earlier that saw Springer just sticking around third as the Twins fired the ball around the horn for a 5-4-3 double play (dude, please score on that). Téo, too, homered, in the high and towering manner that has become his custom, lodging a ball firmly in the living wall which my wife rightly guessed to be of juniper (we looked it up!). (I still miss those breezy pines out there but I get it; I get it.) Still with homers, Marcus Semien hit his forty-third, which is to say that no second baseman in major league history has hit more home runs in a single season than Marcus Semien has now. He has seven games left to break Davey Johnson's record that has stood since 1973, and I bet he will! I think the only middle-infielder to ever hit more in a season would be Alex Rodriguez, which is both lofty company and kind of complicated owing to reasons. Ah, but I spoke too soon: "Mr. Cub" Ernie Banks had three seasons of forty-three or better, which is pretty wild. In any case, Baseball Feelings offers its most sincere congratulations to Marcus Semien upon this most recent attainment, and hopes Marcus hits like fifteen more as the season winds down.     

Earlier in the afternoon, I had the WFAN radio broadcast on, which is to say I bore eager witness to John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman's tireless and yet so tired chronicle of the many ways in which the New York Yankees have disappointed them, and continue to disappoint them. It is strangely compelling to be around. I'm actually glad I switched it off before Stanton's eighth-inning grand slam to go out in front for good, which would have altered the vibe in ways I am sure would please me less. But what a pair, those two. 

This is all to say that on the (Home Hardware?) out-of-town scoreboard, the Yankees won, the Red Sox lost, the Mariners lost (Ohtani hit two triples! that seems so hard to do!), and Oakland won, so with just a week to go, the Blue Jays trail both Wild Card spots by two games (New York and Boston are tied for them), and sit a game ahead of Seattle, two of Oakland. I can't say I am particularly interested in what either Seattle or Oakland do at this point, as their results are only of any significance when the Blue Jays lose, and if the Blue Jays lose at this point, then yikes. A Blue Jays win in Minnesota today with young Alek Manoah on the mound would mean the Blue Jays were necessarily just one game behind either New York or Boston for the second Wild Card spot, two games behind the other, as they head into The Big Series against the Yankees in Toronto Tuesday night. And this would be my strong preference.

KS   

2021 Game One-Fifty-Four: Twins 3, Blue Jays 1

 

whatever else is going on, I do enjoy Bo Bichette

Things are really not going well! And yet, you know what, I find myself far more sanguine than I am sanguineous. Berrios pitched well, as did those designated to relieve him (both Richards and Pearson, on whom I should not be so hard). Marcus Semien homered and doubled (my thanks to him for both), but otherwise the bats were silent aside from a Dickerson single and an Espinal double (welcome back, Santiago). This is not because the Blue Jays are bad hitters; in fact they are very good hitters; but they did not hit. What can you do? There are little lineup quirks here and there, but there's no particular order Charlie Montoyo can put the guys in that will make everybody have better plate appearances all of a sudden. There were a lot of frustratingly short at bats last night, but when the Blue Jays are rolling, they are jumping all over the first or second pitch; it's not a good approach when they're putting up a dozen runs but a bad approach when they're having an off night; it's just who these guys are (wild horses out there, man). I left the radio on after the game last night for some Jays Talk (on the Sportsnet Radio Network), and it is worlds better in the post-Wilner, no-calls, texts-only era, but there was so much hand wringing and frustration, which I get, but also, like, what are you going to do? I would argue that the Blue Jays batters want to hit the ball even more than you want them to hit the ball, Evan in Markham, or whoever (no diss to Evans or Markham whatsoever: we all need to be someone; we all need to be somewhere). I am honestly starting to wonder if maybe none of this is bothering me as much as it should because my current Baseball Mogul save is going so well? As Carson Cistulli first articulated, but which I am sure many of us have long felt, simulation baseball is only marginally more fictional than non-simulation baseball, that is to say, than the baseball that holds (perhaps an undue?) place of privilege in the primary world of our experience. Let us reflect upon and be grateful for the consolations afforded us by the simulacrum/let's go Blue Jays.

KS

2021 Game One-Fifty-Three: Twins 7, Blue Jays 2

 

 the best thing to come out of Thursday's
game is this picture and it isn't close

Of the hundreds of innings of Blue Jays baseball we have seen this year, this fifth inning in Minnesota for sure ranks among the worst of them: Thomas Hatch, already in the game because Steven Matz struggled mightily early, walked Josh Donaldson before Mitch Garver doubled to left center, where Randall Grichuk picked up the ball and inadvertently stepped on and spiked the hand of the crouching Lourdes Gurriel Jr, who came out of the game with his hand wrapped in a towel, and has since been stitched up (just two, and x-rays suggest no breaks). Three batters later, Hatch left the game with a hamstring issue, only for Julian Merryweather, whose spin rate is down kind of a lot since they started checking guys for sticky stuff and whom, along with Nate Pearson, I would rather not see in anything resembling a high-leverage situation the rest of the way, gave up the three-run home that the Twins seemed to have been threatening since the first. What a mess! Any hopes that the Blue Jays might claw themselves back into it starting in the sixth were dashed when third-base coach Luis Rivera vigorously waved Cory Dickerson around third on a Danny Jansen single, right up until the point when he didn't, and so ended that inning, with Dickerson confused and out by a mile. There's really nothing good to say about this one, other than that it's over. Let's just shake this one off, guys!

And so we enter this crucial second-last weekend of the season (if you can believe it!) in a pretty agreeable situation, really, in that the Red Sox and Yankees will in some sense destroy each other in Fenway for three whilst the Blue Jays have every opportunity to gain ground playing the fairly woebegone Minnesota Twins, who have had an enormously disappointing season. Ideally, the Blue Jays would enter next week's series against the Yankees a game or two ahead of New York, but regardless of how exactly things plays out in Boston, the Blue Jays will be in good shape for their final homestand if they can win two of the next three in Minnesota, and potentially very good shape indeed should they take the remaining three. With Berrios, Manoah, and Ray on the hill, why wouldn't they?  

KS

2021 Game One-Fifty-Two: Rays 7, Blue Jays 1

 

"blue are you *serious*, blue?" or, "I said 'that slipped'"

With the non-Vladito Blue Jays bats ice cold today -- Marcus Semien and Bo Bichette added singles to Vladdy's single and double, but that was it -- it doesn't even especially matter that Julien Merryweather had a dicey inning as "the opener" (a bullpen-usage concept I welcome as an avid Baseball Mogulist and occasional OOTPist as well [in my experience it is easier to win at OOTP but is less enjoyable! but more on that in the off-season, perhaps]), or that Ross Stripling got utterly ripped in his brief appearance that followed. I am not to the first to note, certainly, that Stripling does not seem to have the diversity of offerings that make him a suitable starter for a good team, nor does he he have the kind of outrageous velocity that seemingly everybody who comes out of a bullpen flashes these days, so he's kind of in a no-man's-land out there, and his real value (and I am talking "upside") would seem as a low-leverage innings-eater, maybe? Honestly, I am not that inclined to regard him favourably after that nonsense with Joe Panik earlier this season. "A marginal big-league pitcher, Ross yelled at teammate Joe Panik on [insert date here]" it could easily read on the back of his baseball card, and that would be about the size of it as far as I'm concerned. 

It was not a great day for anybody, really, except for maybe Ryan Borucki, who seemed pretty into how he threw at Kevin Kiermaier, by which I mean that I think Borucki was only to pleased to be the one to do it. It led to a heated Pete Walker ejection, too, and I enjoy those a good deal, because of their rarity as much as anything else, I suppose. There is a constant chorus of Charlie Montoyo criticism on Twitter, and much of it consists of how he is not fiery enough, and doesn't make a big stink and get tossed from games, but that is just not his energy; he has different gifts; everybody should just relax (just like Charlie Montoyo, honestly). As is tradition, Borucki said after the the game that he was just trying to throw inside and the ball slipped, but this is not how the umpires saw the issue, and certainly was not the way the Rays felt about it either. Kiermaier, of course, proved himself not the kind of guy to return a lost wallet when he picked up the scouting card that fell out of Alejandro Kirk's pocket on a play at the plate the night before (Kiermaier was out by a mile, you may recall [go Téo]), and then low-key passed it along to Kevin Cash in the dugout like he was handling "the stuff" in exchange for "the money" (I have seen movies). Kevin Cash offered his apologies for the whole thing afterwards, which was nice to do I guess, but I don't see how Cash is at all to blame for how his <<voltigeur>> is a thief, though I suppose Cash is in some broad sense responsible for his charge's comportment, or whatever. Anyway, Kermaier had one coming, and it came, and his comments to the media afterwards were like, "You know what, I hope we do end up playing the Blue Jays in October, ha bloo bloo bloo" or words to that effect. I have decided he is not a cool guy, unlike the off-brand Mr. Peanut who was literally known as "Mr. Gool Guy" and who would swing a bat (all wrists) in low-grade computer graphics on the Jumbotron several decades previous. Now there was a cool guy.

This Blue Jays loss combined with a big Yankees come back win over the lowly Texas Rangers puts the Blue Jays a half-game out of the second Wild Card spot, and two-and-a-half back of Boston with ten to play. The Blue Jays head to Minnesota, and a ballpark I love to behold (though I miss the wavy pines in the batter's eye [I get why they had to go, though {too wavy}]), for four games, with the rotation lining up like this: Matz, Berrios, Ray, Manoah. That looks pretty good! And what's even better is that, starting Friday, the Yankees and Red Sox play a three-game set, as one says, and so each Blue Jays win this weekend means gaining a game on one of the two teams they at present pursue. I don't know if it is actually the case that this weekend is even more important than the three games head-to-head against the Yankees next week, but I think it might be? Like, if the Blue Jays can really go a number on the Twins this weekend, they will gain no fewer than two games on one of either the Red Sox or Yankees, right? And then so long as they are not swept by the Yankees in Toronto next week, things should set up pretty well for the final weekend against Baltimore? I remember looking at this final stretch of the season weeks and weeks and weeks ago, thinking, man, even if everything goes perfectly, it's probably still going to come down to those last three against Baltimore, and yeah, so it would seem; so it would extremely seem.

Ten to go! I am hopeful! 

KS

2021 Game One-Fifty-One: Blue Jays 4, Rays 2

my man is charged up (Drake voice: charged up)

Although I would rather the Blue Jays not walk eleven batters (two in the eighth! three in the ninth!), so long as only one of those runners comes in to score over the course of a tense but rewarding 4-2 I do not feel as though I am really in much of a position to complain about it. Jordon Romano sure made things ticklish for a little in the ninth, didn't he? But everybody was all smiles when he worked his way out of it, only a couple of pitches after a ball was ripped just foul down the first-base: had it been maybe two feet the other way, it could easily have been a walk-off, bases-clearing double (Téo's arm notwithstanding). This was way better than that, though. Another great start from Alek Manoah, who is looking more and more like the AL Rookie of the Year, maybe, and, walks aside, more very good work from Mayza, Richards, and Romano in relief. Lourdes Gurriel Jr. continues to hit better than at any other point in his professional career, and I think I saw that after his home run in this one, he is just one RBI away from the Blue Jays' September record? That's hard to believe, and yet here we are. Bullpen day tomorrow for the rubber-match!

KS 

2021 Game One-Fifty: Rays 6, Blue Jays 4

 

:(

CBC election night coverage takes precedence over Blue Jays baseball in our house -- especially the portion of the evening in which Atlantic Canada is attended to as though it were going to in any way affect the shape of things to come once polls close in Québec and Ontario (that part is my fav!) -- and so the ballgame was relegated to second-screen, play-by-play data on my [computer]phone, which as you know I do not find a bad way to follow baseball at all (it makes it like a sim game! baseball simulators are baseball feelings simulators! these are of course issues we have addressed). Additionally, I had a little bit of the game on the radio[application upon my {computer}phone] as I jogged to the audiologists' where I had accidentally left my bicycle six hours prior, as one does. My thoughts on the game, experienced such as it was through these several media, aside from the disappointment and looming sense of dread that hangs over every late-season loss when one's team is on the cusp of a playoff spot, were mostly about what it is like to watch a pitcher having a Cy Young or Cy-Young-adjacent season, and how unlike the rest of one's experience of baseball that is. Weirdly, I was able to attend every home inning of Roy Halladay's 2003 Cy Young season, and despite their stylistic dissimilarities, watching Robbie Ray this year has felt very much the same way to the extent that when Robbie Ray gets in a jam, my legitimate expectation is that he will get out of it unscathed, and is surprising when he does not, whereas the experience of long-term baseball-watching is to expect none of your pitchers to get out of any jams ever, and to accept each new base runner as a plated run as soon as they touch first base, "mark XP," so to speak, and move on. And Robbie Ray did a fair bit of getting both into and out of jams last night, until he was finally tagged by Yandy Diaz for a three-run homer in the fifth, which put Tampa ahead 3-2 (Téo and Gurriel had solo home runs) and ahead for good. That the Blue Jays kept coming in a ninth inning they came into down 6-2 is laudable, and that Semien knocked hit his forty-first (!!!) to bring the Blue Jays to within two is very pleasing, but what a drag for Breyvic Valera to have struck out with the bases loaded, bat very much on his shoulder (perhaps even on the shoulder of his heart?) to end it. I have seen both subjective and objective accounts (like, pitch data) of some pretty funny looking strikes last night in the top of the ninth, and while that may indeed be the case (it seems to have been), what can you do. It is a tough feeling to lose a Robbie Ray start at this point in the season, but we've got Alek Manoah going tonight; we're moving from strength to strength here. 

So where do we stand, with a dozen games to go? Okay let's see: the Blue Jays trail the Red Sox by a game and a half for the first Wild Card spot (the home game one, let us say), and sit a half-game ahead of the Yankees, two ahead of the Athletics, and three ahead of the Mariners for the second one (let's call it the road one). The Yankees play the eminently beatable Rangers whilst the Red Sox play the always Metsy Mets this week as the Blue Jays toil away in "the Trop," which is a tough draw for us, but at least the A's and Mariners play each other, so one of them will be falling off the pace for sure. If the Blue Jays can leave Tampa still in a playoff spot, with ten games to play (four in Minnesota [lovely park!], three against the Yankees [who we have to beat], three against the Orioles [who we have to beat]), that would be things shaping up about as well as you could hope for. So let's hope for it!

KS

2021 Game One-Forty-Nine: Blue Jays 5, Twins 3

 

beautiful light Saturday, or the beautiful absence of it

You jump out to an early five-nothing lead on the strength of Bo Bichette's twenty-sixth home run of the year and plus a bunch of other stuff, and you hold onto it, you just get out there and you hold onto it; that's what you do. I couldn't be happier with the way this went: Berrios looking like a wonderful pickup not just for the rest of this season but for all of next, Richards and Romano holding it down in relief, lots of steady to slightly-above-steady play in the field, good at-bats up and down the lineup . . . there is nothing not to like! After the game, I turned the radio (in the sense of the radio that I pay to listen to on my computer phone [it is not a bad deal and I am not complaining]) over to the WFAN Yankees feed, which featured Suzyn Waldman marveling over just how "brutal" Cleveland reliever Sam Hentges' stats are this season, and then growing utterly disgusted as he struck out the side on not even all that many pitches to finish the 11-1 romp. John Sterling, who will forever remain the voice of All-Star Baseball 2001 for N64 to me, was no less thrilled about it. And why would he be? Whilst the Blue Jays took two out of three from the Twins this weekend despite a disastrous outing for Hyun-Jin Ryu, the Yankees lost both games they played against Cleveland, and allowed eleven runs in each. Gerrit Cole, who has probably now fallen from contention for the AL Cy Young, was seen cursing loudly as he looked up and saw the (Home Hardware?) out-of-town scoreboard. And yet the Yankees, for all their listlessness, remain very much in this thing: the Blue Jays are only a game and a half ahead, and we're into Tampa for three starting tonight. Would it be too much to ask for two straight series wins against the Rays? Probably! And yet we've got Robbie Ray (he is himself a Ray, giving him a certain measure of insight here?) and Alek Manoah in the first two games before a "bullpen game" (or perhaps a "Ross Stripling game") on Wednesday, owing to Hyun-Jin Ryu's trip to the injured list with a sore neck (hey no jokes: it is not from all the home runs [or maybe it is, what do I know]).  

KS

2021 Game One-Forty-Eight: Blue Jays 6, Twins 2

 

lol what's going on with Téo

The estimable Kaitlyn McGrath notes that the Blue Jays have not lost back-to-back games since the twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh of August, and those were to two different teams, even: the Tigers and the White Sox. I am pleased to report that this very good thing indeed continued Saturday, whereupon Marcus Semien hit is fortieth home run of the season (he is, you will recall, a second baseman), Teoscar Hernandez hit his twenty-eighth, Bo Bichette went three-for-four, and Vladdy picked up another hit and a pair of walks like it was no big deal (it is, though, and we appreciate it). Steven Matz settled in nicely after Josh Donaldson's first-inning home run (come on, man), and the bullpen went Richards to Mayza to Cimber to Romano just as slick as you please. Meanwhile, the Yankees appear to have blown it against Cleveland, which I obviously welcome at all times but especially today. Hey has it reached the point for you where you get pretty nervous now about each remaining Blue Jays game and feel that way on at least a background-level all day before they play and for some reason on off-days also? I ask for no reason other my general concern for your well-being as a fellow human.    

KS 

2021 Game One-Forty-Seven: Twins 7, Blue Jays 3

 

I worry he is a little down

As weird as it may be that Robbie Ray is probably two decent starts away from winning the AL Cy Young -- and that's pretty weird! -- it seems even weirder still that Hyun-Jin Ryu is, at the moment, the least reliable of anyone in our starting rotation. And whenever Ryu struggles, one worries a little (does one not) that at the relatively advanced age of thirty-four, that maybe this is it, the struggle from which he does not recover? "One of the uses of reading is to prepare ourselves for [pitching] change[s]," the rightly disgraced literary critic Harold Bloom once wrote, "and the final [pitching] change alas is universal." I do not wish to be unduly dramatic but five runs in just two innings of work is a dark turn of events, and leads one to ponder both mortality and the eternal, a little. You only get so many seasons.

In brighter news, we got to watch Byron Buxton play, which is a joy. What a stance! And it was very nice that the Toronto crowd welcomed the returning Josh Donaldson so warmly. Even though Josh Donaldson was never at all "my guy," and never seemed to me "my kind of guy," this was all very nice. I would invite him, in the future, to hit fewer homers, though.

KS 

2021 Game One-Forty-Six: Blue Jays 6, Rays 3

 

he is for real going to win the AL Cy Young at this point, isn't he

Bo Bichette, the Blue Jays' deserving nominee for this year's Roberto Clemente award (they never nominate jerks), wore Clemente's number 21 today (as did, of course, many players) as he knocked in five of the six Toronto runs: a three-fun shot in the first, a sac fly in the third, an infield hit that he legged out in the fifth. Had you stayed tuned after the game for Jays Talk (they just read texts now! it is infinitely better than taking calls! except we'll never really get this kind of thing again, I guess) you'd have heard one of the host describe Bo Bichette as "just a wild horse out there." What a notion, and utterance. From there, all Robbie Ray had to do was hold the Non-Robbie Rays (haha!) to a lone run on four hit and no walks with thirteen strikeouts through seven complete, no big deal. The only Blue Jays lefties to strike out thirteen or more are Robbie Ray a bunch of times now, and, weirdly enough, 2004 Ted Lilly. Never would have guessed that one! In relief, Soria ran into a little trouble in the eighth, but not so much that it was especially ticklish when Jordon Romano came out to lock it down in the ninth. A series win against the Rays is fantastic, and yet I feel slightly unfantastic to see that the Mariners are currently betraying the 1977-expansion-cousin solidarity that should have them defeating the Boston Red Sox, whereas in reality they have gone behind 7-3 in the 10th (come on, man), and the Yankees are already up early against Baltimore; and so our three-way tie for two Wild Card spots lives to die another day (not a great film). The Blue Jays are off tomorrow ahead of their three-game series with the Twins, and while I am sure they will welcome the reprieve, all I see when I look at tomorrow's schedule is that the Yankees play the Orioles again, so the Blue Jays will probably enter play Friday a half-game behind. I've got playoff-worrying fever!

KS

2021 Game One-Forty-Five: Rays 2, Blue Jays 0

 

neat shot of the grip

Well, what are you gonna do: the Blue Jays lost for only the second time in September, and were shut out for only the third time all season, and the Tampa Bay Rays are now the first team in the American League to ninety wins. Fair play to them. I barely caught any of this one at all, turning the radio off (for reasons of judo) just after Bo Bichette's diving stop to save a run in the top of the second, and by the time I returned to the radio (after having judo'd) the game was already complete in a tidy two hours and twenty minutes. Reports received through both the medium of SMS text message and also the medium of Blue Jays Baseball on the Sportsnet Radio Network brought to you by Jack Link's (Jack Link's: Send Hunger to the Minors) indicate that José Berríos pitched well, but solo home runs from Brandon Lowe and the rightly beloved Ji-Man Choi were the difference. So it goes. A three-way tie for the Wild Card spots is, in my view, no fun, as there are only two of those. Robbie Ray's up next in the rotation though!

KS

2021 Game One-Forty-Four: Blue Jays 8, Rays 1

 

Vladdy: got another one

Would we agree that defeating the Tampa Bay Rays 8-1 is more impressive, and indeed way more impressive, than clobbering the poor Orioles 22-7? I say this because the Rays, through unparalleled drafting and development, canny use of analytics, and ruthless exploitation of the collective bargaining agreement, are pretty clearly the best team in the American League (virtually all that occurs in the National League, in this our long post-Expos nightmare, is little more than rumour to me), whereas the Orioles do not really excel at any of those things just now mentioned, and look like they will have a really rough time for the foreseeable future (please spare a thought, once more, for the plight of young Cedric Mullins). Alek Manoah's slider was absolutely vanishing on dudes to such an extent that replay footage of those same dudes, having swung overtop those sliders, could be seen uttering minor curses and oaths in super slow motion. Eight innings, one hit, ten strikeouts, nary a walk. I have since read that this is the first time a Blue Jays pitcher has done this precise thing, heavy emphasis on the "no walks" part of it I think. As to the bats, the lovely four-run fourth inning rally is really all we needed: with one out, the Blue Jays went Téo single (five-for-five on the night!), Kirk single, Gurriel Jr. single, Grichuk double just fair down the third-base line (go Randal; go Randal), Valera single. Did we need Bo Bichette's fifth-inning home run on an absurdly low breaking ball (the second-lowest pitch to go for a homer this season, it turns out)? Or Vladimir Guerrero Jr.'s forty-fifth (Ohtani-passing, Dadimir-Guerrero-single-season exceeding) home run an inning after that? Strictly speaking we did not, no, and yet at the same time, they added so much. Who knows how any of this ends (and sort of also who cares?), but what's happening right now feels perfectly unparalleled in my time of Attending to Baseball Generally and to The Toronto Blue Jays Specifically (there is perfect overlap between these two things), and it turns out this is statistically true, as Buster Olney notes (crediting the Elias Sports Bureau): "The Blue Jays have 36 HR and are batting .331 in 13 games in September. They are the first team in modern MLB history to hit 36+ HR and bat .330 or better over any 13-game span." If there are young Blue Jays baseball fans in your life, please take the time to explain to them, preferably in the kitchen (it seems the right place to say it), that not only has this never happened before, it will never happen again, so let's just hang out here for as long as we're able and have a nice time. 

Another truly wonderful night of baseball, which occurred, much to my surprise, in Toronto: it is next week that the Blue Jays play three in Tampa before heading to Minnesota for the weekend; it is this week that the Blue Jays host both teams. We at Baseball Feelings regret the error. 

The Yankees walked the Twins off yesterday afternoon (I had the Minnesota radio call on my phone yesterday afternoon, and Byron Buxton's Sheboygan Sausage/Bratwurst advertisement is unreal; I will endeavour to find it online and share it with the class), which is a shame, but the Red Sox fell apart late (very late!) in Seattle last night after an untimely Kyle Schwarber error at first, so the Blue Jays are clear of both teams by a full game for now. Schwarber, interestingly, has been a topic of conversation of several of the old FanGraph Audio's I have been listening to lately, circa 2015 now, as I work my way back. The bat would play, Dave Cameron speculated in response to Carson Cistulli's queries, but where might one ask him to stand? A question no less pressing despite the years.

José Berríos on the hill tonight!  

KS 

2021 Game One-Forty-Three: Blue Jays 22, Orioles 7

 

guys I think Vladdy Jr might be special

Amongst the wilder elements of the Blue Jays 22-7 win over the Orioles yesterday is that the game wasn't even as close as that score suggests, as the Orioles scored four of their runs after the game was already very much a wrap. It was 16-4 after three! The Blue Jays had already scored six runs before they sent fourteen batters to the plate to score their ten in the third, and it didn't take long for those of us on the couch to start feeling, alongside our joy, a fair measure of pity for these poor benighted Orioles, who were hopelessly and helplessly stuck in the most miserable inning you could have, in pretty much the most miserable game you could have, in one of the more miserable seasons you're ever going to have, too (and my understanding is that there does not look to be a whole lot of help coming for the great Cedric Mullins in the next couple of years, either). We had put the game on a little late (had to toss the ball around in the yard a little before the game in case either of us were called on to pitch -- you never know) and felt a little silly that in so doing we had missed not just a five-run first (you only get so many!), but Lourdes Gurriel Jr.'s Blue-Jays-best fourth grand slam of the season. How fortuitous, then, that in addition to just everything, we also got to see home runs from Jake Lamb, Téoscar Hernandez, and, most weightily, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., whose 44th home run matched the highest-single season total of his father, who I invite you join me in calling "Dadimir Guerrero" if not exclusively, then with fond frequency. 

An outrageously, almost egregiously triumphant day at Camden Yards, and once that was over, literally everybody else with any bearing whatsoever on the Blue Jays' playoff hopes lost: Boston, New York, Oakland, Seattle, and even Tampa Bay. Where does this leave us? Well, for the moment, at least, tied with Boston for the first Wild Card spot (and also, I suppose, tied for the second one as well), with the Yankees a game behind, and both Oakland and Seattle two further games behind New York. Things immediately get much, much tougher, as we head to Tampa Bay for three starting tonight, and then after a weekend in Minnesota, three more against the Rays in Toronto next week. Although the prudent course would be to temper one's expectations for a moment real quick, it is worth noting, I think, that if the Blue Jays sweep their remaining games in Tampa, they would be a mere three games out of the AL East lead. A typo a moment ago had that last sentence read "it is worth nothing," which might be more or less the size of it, and yet. And yet.

KS

2021 Games One-Forty-One and One-Forty-Two (Doubleheader!): Blue Jays 11, Orioles 10 (F/7), Blue Jays 11, Orioles 2 (F/7)

 

there she goes; let's admire that one

Well, this has literally never happened before, like in baseball ever: the Blue Jays hit home runs in their final turn at bat to come from behind in and win both games of a doubleheader. Game One had so many fallings behind and comings back (2-0 after the 1st; 5-2 after the 2nd; 7-3 after the 3rd; 10-5 after the 4th; 10-7 going in the 7th and final inning) that I was heard to remark that it would almost be better, emotionally, if the Blue Jays, once smooshed, just stayed smooshed, and let that be the end of it. Hyun-Jin Ryu had his worst start as a Blue Jay, and I am pretty sure by a lot: seven runs in just two-and-a-third, and there was nothing cheap about any of it; he was just getting smoked out there. Ross Stripling wasn't a tonne of help in relief, either, but young Nate Pearson's two shutout innings afforded the boys the requisite space in which to bop, and so we saw a four-run top of the seventh, capped by George Springer's two-run shot to take the lead, which Romano held onto despite Vladdy's error on a tough ground ball to first with two away. Four home runs on the day! Springer's 17th to win it, but also Gurriel's 17th early (he has been on quite a run!), Vladdy's 43rd (closing in on Ohtani! [who you will recall also pitches {quite well}]), and Danny Jansen's 8th (he's been hot, too!). It was all pretty incredible.

And then Game Two . . .

yesssssssssssssss

 . . . in which Keegan Akin (for real!) no-hit the Blue Jays through six, only for the Blue Jays to put up eleven runs in the seventh. All in that one inning. Like, in a row. How might one even achieve such a feat? Well, I'll tell you: Vladdy 1B, Bo Bichette HR, Téo 1B, mound visit/pitching change, Kirk HR, Gurriel 1B, Grichuk 1B, mound visit, Valera sac fly (that's one out!), Springer 1B, mound visit, Semien HR, Vladdy 1B (again!), mound visit/pitching change, Bichette 1B, Téo HR, Kirk BB, Dyson F8 (two away!), Grichuk BB, Valera F8 (the side is, at last, retired). Eleven runs on eleven hits. That's shocking. I was shocked. 

Friday night's 6-3 loss to the lowly Orioles was disappointing, but totally understandable on a human level (like in terms of feelings), in that the Blue Jays, coming off of improbable sweeps of both the A's and the Yankees, with no days off to be seen, had to be emotionally drained from it all, right? And then to fall behind right away the next day even though Hyun-Jin Ryu was on the mound had to be a downer, too. But these guys hung in there, and they can really hit! Jesse Barfield got so excited about it all on Twitter, which was a real pleasure to be around. Those of us assembled on the couch at various times throughout this long afternoon and evening of Blue Jays baseball matched that level of excitement, though perhaps not the level of appreciation that seems available to Jesse Barfield, and perhaps to Jesse Barfield alone.

KS 

2021 Game One-Forty: Orioles 6, Blue Jays 3

 

oh no

Well, it was I suppose inevitable that the Blue Jays would lose at least once in September, and now it is upon us. So ends the truly joyous eight-game winning streak, and so dies the dream of the Blue Jays first one-hundred-win season in team history, as their (pretty good!) record now stands at 77-63. Were the Orioles stealing signs, or was Robbie Ray tipping his pitches? Who can say, and yet it is definitely the case that the Orioles did an unusually good job of laying off the slider, and it is no less the case that utterly inconsequential Orioles managerial Brandon Hyde made a gross spectacle of himself by getting loudly and profanely aggressive towards Ray in a tirade that was totally picked up by the broadcast owing to how there was almost no crowd noise owing to how there was almost no crowd owing to how almost nobody wants to take in a baseball game in Baltimore even though they have maybe the nicest ballpark in the world for doing that. Hey Brandon, hey Brandon, hey Brandon: great job this year though man. You know that there are children around, right, guy? Not at the ballpark, so much, as nobody goes (tough season Brandon but seriously, seriously, seriously: great job this year man), but definitely children watching at home, some of whom would have heard every word of your deeply ineffectual toxic nonsense had they not been engrossed by a recent issue of National Geographic Kids at that precise moment. Anyway, I didn't care for it. 

Ray toughed it out after the three-run first, and the Blue Jays came back to tie it up through six, but Julian Merryweather's fairly disastrous two-homer, three-run seventh was the end of anything like that. I am not wild about putting Pearson and Merryweather, two oft-injured rookies who have barely pitched this year, into high-leverage situations, but this seems to be a thing that is going to happen? Can Montoyo, who is such a good player development guy, stop developing young players for even a second? I am being somewhat lighthearted when I say that, yet I am also concerned! I get that it can't be Mayza and Romano every night the rest of the way, but I sure wish it could be. Both the Yankees and the Red Sox lost, so no real harm done standingswise, and we've got two today (seven inning ones! our time to shine!), so a nice chance to gain on both teams regardless of what happens to either (go White Sox [this seems plausible], go Mets [oh no]).

KS 

2021 Game One-Thirty-Nine: Blue Jays 6, Yankees 4

 

un <<middle infield>> de qualité

If you had told me that, coming off of the deeply improbable weekend sweep of Oakland, the Blue Jays would go on to take three of four at Yankee Stadium, I would have been totally thrilled with that result (this is self-evident), and been like, "yes please." And so then why is it that, with the first three games already in hand, I had such a strong feeling that this one particular game was of such especial pitch and moment? (Little Hamlet Act 3 Scene 1 for you there and also it says "pitch.") How fortuitous, then, that Bo Bichette elected to just totally win it: his leadoff home run came with a strangely soft, limber swag (and was rightly giffed immediately), and his go-ahead single in the seventh, though less æsthetic, was no less welcome. Let's hear it, too, for Grichuk's fifh-inning homer (go Randal!) and the absolute rocket Vladdy ripped off Heaney in the ninth. Would we have rathered Nate Pearson not give up two solo home runs in the ninth, one against the fairly gross Luke Voit? I mean, absolutely. But after another solid Berrios start, and good work from Soria and Mayza, there was room to breathe (see also: the Vladdy homer). 

So that's eight in a row, to pull the Blue Jays to within a half-game of a Wild Card spot, and indeed to within a game-and-a-half of the first one, even, with plenty of September still to go. On the broadcast, they mentioned that this was only the second time the Blue Jays have ever swept the Yankees in a four-game series at Yankee Stadium, and as soon as they said so, my hand shot up (in my heart) to say that the first time was for sure 2003, the Blue Jays season I know best of all, and when this was confirmed a little later, I felt that it was my finest feat of baseball remembering quite possibly ever. And so I share it with you now.

Off to Camden Yards! Another four-game sweep is perhaps too much to ask, even against the somewhat lowly Orioles, but it sure would be good to win a few of these, as Tampa Bay comes in next week, and that is, to me, straight-up troubling.   

KS

2021 Game One-Thirty-Eight: Blue Jays 6, Yankees 3

 

Téo

I admit that I lost heart, a little, when my least favourite Yankee -- Brett Gardner, whom my brother-in-law rightly characterized via SMS text message as "seem[ing] a bit much" (seems, madam? nay, it is; I know not "seems") -- hit a three-run home run off young Alek Manoah to tie it in the fifth. The three runs the Blue Jays scored had in the fourth, though of course pleasing, had also sort of not been, as the Yankee starter Luis Gil spent the early innings all over the place, just walking dudes indiscriminately, and yet the Blue Jays had a really tough time getting many of those selfsame dudes safely home. I was worried that Gil was going to be bad enough to be pulled early, but not quite bad enough to get touched up early? If you see what my cares were? And feel like validating them? Imagine, then, my delight, as the Blue Jays added a run in each of the seventh (Téo singles, Semien scores), eighth (Jake Lamb hits a sac fly to score Jarrod Dyson pinch-running for Lourdes Gurriel's triple), and ninth (Vladdy hit a rocket to the seats in left off of Aroldis Chapman), whilst the bullpen or Richards, Cimber, and Romano held everything together beautifully. Seven wins in a row! No fewer than three-of-four in the Bronx! With Berrios on the mound looking for the four-game sweep! Two back of Boston, a-game-and-a-half behind the Yanks! And not least of all, the dream of a team-best one-hundred-win season lives another day, as the Blue Jays hold fast at sixty-two losses. With twenty-four games to go, the Blue Jays would have to go 14-10 the rest of the way to finish with ninety wins, which does not seem unworkable. I believe I have already made abundantly (perhaps excessively?) clear my position that if you win ninety but miss the postseason you are blameless, but ninety really really ought to do it, this year, the way both the Red Sox and Yankees are playing (they are not at their best). Ninety-two would feel like a lock. It's hard to count on too many wins out of these six games we've got coming against the Rays, but those three more against the Yankees after we see a whole bunch of the Orioles and the Twins should be pretty interesting! And I am prepared to be interested. 

KS   

2021 Game One-Thirty-Seven: Blue Jays 5, Yankees 1

 

snagged it

As we previewed Tuesday night's game whilst standing around in our kitchen, the foremost point of interest was whether or not it was best that Steven Matz got the assignment opposite Yankees ace and Robbie-Ray-AL-Cy-Young-rival Gerrit Cole, or if you would rather it be Ray, or Ryu, or Manoah, or Berrios (this really has turned out to be quite a rotation!). It's not that it was a decision to be made, or anything, as this is just when Matz (who has been really good lately) came up in the rotation, but it's interesting to think about whether you want your best chance to win this one individual game, which would mean Robbie Ray, or if, by thinking about the arc of the four-game series, you accept that a Gerrit Cole game is the game you are least likely to win out of any of them, and so you would rather just run whoever up there, and save your best starter(s) for other, seemingly more winnable games. I think we decided that it was good that it was gonna be Steven Matz? And indeed it was, in that he scattered seven hits (and, crucially, no walks) over six innings for just a single run, and the bullpen (Soria, Mayza, Romano) pitched three perfectly clean innings in relief. "Ah, but what news of Alejandro Kirk, our young king," you rightly inquire, to which: two homers! Kirk had been designated to hit, and he took that designation seriously (also there was some very pleasant japery on Twitter suggesting Gerrit Cole's fourth-inning balk was because Kirk, standing at first, had him shook). Marcus Semien, perhaps unsurprisingly, added another home run, as he draws ever nearer forty, which is a wild, wild number for a second baseman. Yep, a 5-1 in over Gerrit Cole (who admittedly left early with hamstring tightness) in Yankee Stadium, on a night where our starter was Steven Matz, and neither Vladito nor Bo Bichette had a hit. Boston lost again, because of how the Rays are irritatingly clever and good, which means the Blue Jays now sit just two games behind the Red Sox for the final Wild Card spot, and just two-and-a-half behind the Yankees. Six in a row! Hottest team in baseball! It'll be no worse than a split in New York, with two shots to win the series, with Manoah and then Berrios on the mound. It has started to feel like this really might be happening! And yet it is all still so tenuous.  

KS