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| 9Ks! |
Easter Monday responsibilities kept me from attending to the earliest innings of this afternoon's contest, but those responsibilities having been merrily discharged, I was just so pleased to learn that the boys, in my absence, had been boppin': a Vladito single cashed in a Cavan Biggio walk in the first, before Marcus Semien and Biggio hit home runs on consecutive pitches in the second, and all was as well as could be as I joined Dan and Buck for the middle innings (. . . and beyond). Biggio had a great day: he hit a home run, worked two walks, was hit by a pitch (he seems not to mind -- the pitch that hit Guerrero on the hands got minded pretty hard though, at least by me), and scored three of the Blue Jays six runs. It is important to remember that every success enjoyed by Cavan Biggio, certainly pleasant enough in and of itself, is rendered almost sublime by the extent to which it strikes a blow not only against Keith Law (a J. P. Ricciardi-front-office alumn! what an era!) but indeed against everything Keith Law chooses to be. I am going to try not to go on about this all season (I will almost certainly fail), but it is obviously no big deal to miss on a prospect, in either direction: you think there's something there, and it turns out there maybe isn't; or you don't really see what all the fuss is about, and the kid turns out to be totally fussworthy. Live and learn! And prospects are inherently weird! And so it is no great bother that Keith Law thought so little of Cavan Biggio's prospects initially, though I do take issue with the smugness with which he expressed this position (hey, tone matters). But to continue to maintain, once Biggio has put up 3.6 fWAR in his first 162 games, that Biggio is "not worth the roster spot," is such mean-spirited arrogance that it really grinds my gears. Oh man, I just checked Baseball Reference, and they've got Biggio at 5.0 wins! bWAR likes him even more than the FanGraphs version! I am so worked up right now!
Let us also get worked up with regard to reclamation-lefty Steven Matz, who gave up only two hits (and a walk and an HBP, to be fair) through six-and-a-third, and struck out nine, including his last four. I will note that he is the only Blue Jays pitcher my current, fairly disastrous save of Baseball Mogul seems to have any faith in, and I have come to share that faith. Matz's fine outing combined with the aforementioned boppin' (I credit the boys) meant no high-leverage relievers today: Chatwood and Mayza were fine, while Dolis is kind of all over the place. He'd have gotten out of the ninth fairly cleanly had Grichuk held onto the ball he caught as he flew into the wall, but hey, what was it doing at the wall to begin with, right?
Finally, please enjoy these moments of tender fellowship between Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette, which seem almost to intimate to be broadcast, and yet here they are. Ours is a voyeuristic age, I suppose.
KS
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