2021 Game Thirteen: Royals 7, Blue Jays 5

 

Many people are saying the ball has yet to land;
many people are saying this.

I think I played this one perfectly, honestly: I had the game on in the background as I marked some final papers (where did the semester go!), and so caught the part of the game wherein Anthony Kay, starting on short notice (times are tough), got dinged for five runs (four earned) but definitely deserved better, as the Blue Jays kicked the ball around pretty good, especially poor Cavan Biggio, who made two errors at third before leaving the game with some kind of hand problem. With the Blue Jays down 7-0 through five innings in a game with an hour-late start-time, that's a natural point at which to just bail and go on with your evening, right? However I kind of fell ill at that exact moment, and incapable of doing anything even marginally productive or even really especially diverting, I just laid down on the couch with the game on not with any sort of hope for its outcome, but only for a low-key distraction from my condition (I felt much better in the morning, by the way, but thank you for your concern), and Dan Shulman and Pat Tabler (who I seem to have finally made peace with?) performed this service admirably, for which I am grateful. But then! The Blue Jays came roaring back! A four-run sixth! Great job Joe Panik, and also Rowdy! And then Vladimir Guerrero's 456-foot home run in the seventh, as seen here! And then I totally fell asleep, and missed Bo popping up (the infield fly rule was in effect, or so I have read) and Vladdy striking out with the tying runs aboard in the ninth (an utterly indefensible strike two call from that at-bat has been well documented already, but hey). So I got all of the excitement of the Blue Jays drawing near, and none of the disappointment of the comeback falling just short, and as mentioned previously/parenthetically, I'm really much better today, so I feel like that all turned out about as well as could have for me personally, if not for the Blue Jays themselves. Also Vladdy is now "slashing" .413/.526/.674 and his fWAR is already at 1.0 in thirteen games. Let me check on Bo real quick, too: .302/.345/.604, good for 0.7 fWAR. That's good stuff! Plus I just like how those guys are friends.

Rained out tonight, but a double-header tomorrow! 

KS