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| The most æsthetic right-handed swing in Blue Jays history, maybe? |
Bo Bichette's walk-off home run against the Yankees was actually a whole lot like his first home run of the day, in that they were both high fly balls to the opposite field that did not immediately look like they were going to be trouble, but with the wind blowing out to right they were totally trouble, and then everybody was super happy. I am so pleased that the story of the game ended up being Bo Bichette, because for the longest time it looked the it was going to be "runners left stranded," and that is always a drag. The Blue Jays have only ever beaten the Yankees with walk-off home runs four times: twice by Vernon Wells, which totally makes sense, as Vernon is top-five in both games played and home runs in team history, and now twice by Bo Bichette, which does not make much sense at all, as he has yet to play the equivalent of a single full season. And yet! Here's another good one, this time from the Blue Jays' Twitter: "Bo Bichette has tied Joe DiMaggio for the MOST multi-extra-base hit games (14) through his first 87 MLB games." We are all rightly nuts about how well Vladdy Jr. is hitting the ball right now (two more base hits today, both grounders that he just ripped through the infield), but Bo Bichette's 1.012 OPS as a decent shortstop compares pretty nicely to Vladdy's 1.105 as an unusually eager 1B/DH, right? I am not saying these numbers are necessarily projectible, but they do describe with tremendous accuracy and precision that which has already occurred!
Let us hear it also for the much-loved Alejandro Kirk, whose first home run of the season came today, and for Rowdy Tellez, who is coming around. Poor Cavan Biggio, though: our guy hits a little shot into right that Aaron Judge misreads and it rolls more or less through him (though not an error, it sure wasn't great) and then all the way to the wall for what should have been an easy triple -- and indeed it was! Except third base coach Luis Rivera had been waving Biggio in hard until he was really pretty close to the bag, so Biggio's turn around third was enormous, and when he tried to scurry back upon seeing just how (quite literally) ill-advised that turn had been, Luis Rivera was kind of in the way, and they got tangled up, though only one of the two got tagged out (Rivera was safe by a mile). A disaster! Judge, to his credit, made a really strong throw to get the ball back in, but just a complete mess. As the inning ended, you could see Biggio and Rivera having quite a talk about it, and nobody looked overly animated about it or anything, but Cavan had this energy about it like "Goll-ee, man." Plus he was pretty out of breath.
T. J. Zeuch (a fun name! try it out! it's like zoinks!) pitched ably on short notice when it turned out Ross Stripling couldn't go. Four runs in four innings with a couple home runs (both to Aaron Judge, who remains so tall) probably isn't what anybody hoped for, least of all Zeuch, but it kept the Blue Jays around, and the bullpen went Thornton and Castro for two each, then Rafael Dolis, who I seem to have a lot invested in (maybe something to explore; I don't know).
And so the Blue Jays are back to .500 now at 6-6, with fully half of those games having been against the Yankees, and trail the first-place Red Sox, who I refuse to believe are real, by two and a half games. Up next: the Royals, who are off to a pretty good start, and with whom I would prefer to have no problem at all though the facts of 1985 and 2015 weigh heavy; they are weighty, and I feel their weight.
KS
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