2021 Games Fifty-One and Fifty-Two (Doubleheader!): Toronto 4, Cleveland 1 (F/7), Cleveland 5, Toronto 4 (F/7)

 

Do not be fooled by the sense of speed communicated
in this find photograph: this part took forever

Game one of the doubleheader on what looked like a beautiful afternoon in Cleveland was all bloops and bounces (some blorps; some bournces) until Teoscar Hernandez (no surprise) and Rowdy Tellez (seriously!) hit some fairly mighty home runs in the fourth. Ross Stripling, who has made some mechanical adjustments (he says he is feeling more open to them then he had been previously, given that his ERA is like seven! his words not mine!), cruised through five innings, turning it over to Dolis and Romano for what felt like a pretty easy/breezy 4-1 win. If the Blue Jays are going to use Rafael Dolis, I am pleased to have them do so in an afternoon game, where bedtimes are not at stake; in this sense, I applaud Charlie Montoyo's bullpen management on this day. However, Montoyo's choice to leave Tyler Chatwood on the mound for four consecutive walks in the bottom of the seventh inning is not a move, or I suppose non-move, I am able to support as much as I might like to. Anyone even passingly familiar with my in-game Baseball Mogul management skills (that is to say, "me and me alone") can tell you (as I am telling you right now) that I totally get how tough it is to run a bullpen, and so I approach all "IRL" bullpen escapades with (and indeed in) that awareness. But even for me, this seventh inning approach seemed . . . lacking? A series win in Cleveland, coming off the series win in New York, should feel a whole lot better than this, right? I could not help but notice that "Gibby" was trending in Canada on Twitter, as nostalgic Blue Jays fans turned to times of arguably better bullpen management. Ah well: on to Buffalo, where the Blue Jays will host (after a fashion) first Miami, and then Houston, and it remains weird to me that only one of those two series will be interleague, as I am old, and in fact too old to learn. 

KS

2021 Game Fifty: Toronto 11, Cleveland 2 (F/7)

 

Four hits, one dinger, two gun fingerz

Though it rained sideways in Cleveland Friday night, Hyun-Jin Ryu was still striking dudes out with his 68MPH curveball because the man is, quite simply, An Artist. They only got through six and a half innings before the game was called, which was probably more than enough of them (innings, I mean) for the Cleveland pitchers, who were lit up by the bottom-half of the Blue Jays lineup (Vladdy and the boys up top didn't have much of a night, weirdly). One felt especially for Cleveland rookie Eli Morgan, who made his first career start in the worst conditions you're likely to see, and gave up six runs on eight hits and two walks and didn't get out of the third. Morgan is said to rely particularly on his changeup, which is totally fine (consider, for example, Hyun-Jin Ryu), but early on, Buck Martinez, a lovely guy who does not look for problems, was like, "Morgan's changeup looks like it is possibly just too slow, and major league hitters are going to pick it up coming out of his hand, and it's not gonna be good for him." And then they extremely did, just whacking it all over the part for extra bases. Of everyone having a miserable night, Mogan's seemed miserablist. A Saturday rainout followed, so two more seven-inning games later today. A nice break for the bullpen! 

KS 

2021 Game Forty-Nine: Yankees 5, Blue Jays 3 (F/7)

 

I'm honestly not sure which game this one's from

In the first game of the double header, Dan Shulman related that although Bo Bichette says he has not felt good at the plate lately, he does feel good about the way he is battling through the predicament of not feeling good at the plate, so although he is not feeling good, he feels pretty good about it. And then he hit two home runs, the first a solo shot in the day game, the second a three-run high fly ball that barely made it over the fence on a pitch that was such a hilarious hanger that it looked like a cartoon representation of a hanger, or something -- and Bo's immediate reaction was not one of celebration (he is not adverse to admiring his mighty wallops [nor should he be!]) but of seeming frustration at the thought that he maybe got under that juicy pitch and didn't get enough of it to clear the wall. But no worries! It was all pretty delightful. Not Robbie Ray's best outing, though certainly not his worst, but I guess Aaron Judge, who, although not silly, was made to look silly with some of his swings against Manoah earlier in the day, elected to put to rest any rumors of silliness with a nice big home run in the third. The Blue Jays had a couple of entertaining plays in the field, throwing out two Yankees at the plate (including Gary Sanchez by about thirty or forty feet on one of the worst "sends" you'll ever see from a third base coach at any level), but if you're even in a position to be throwing a couple of guys out at the plate in the same seven-inning baseball game, you're probably getting touched up a little out there. And so it went. A sweep in Yankee Stadium would have been an absolutely ideal way to end the losing streak, but taking two out of three in New York really does feel almost as good. And now it's Ryu day!

KS

2021 Game Forty-Eight: Blue Jays 2, Yankees 0 (F/7)

 

A large guy

Rather than cut to commercials (or the MLB.TV absence thereof) once the top of the first had wrapped, Sportsnet showed us young Alek Manoah take the mound and run through all of his warmup pitches, the whole deal. This had the potential to maybe seem a little overdone if his début ended up being poor or even kind of slightly normal, but the way things worked out -- just two hits and two walks over six shut-out innings with seven strikeouts -- it seems to have been a reasonable call. Manoah's cheering section made up a significant portion of the tiny Yankee Stadium crowd for the first half of the double header, and his mother was so emotionally bound up in every moment that Buck Martinez quipped that we needed to keep her on a pitch count (good one, Buck!). This couldn't have gone better, and at a time where the Blue Jays couldn't really have needed it much more, what with all the, you know, starting pitching things. The Blue Jays bats were quiet (just four hits) except when they were loud (back-to-back solo home run from Semien and Bichette), but they didn't need to do a whole lot with Manoah throwing like he was throwing. What fun!

KS

2021 Game Forty-Seven: Blue Jays 6, Yankees 2

 

I'm not even sure what this is
but I am nevertheless "here for it"

My understanding is that, before Steven Matz did it last night, no Blue Jays pitcher had ever struck out ten whilst walking none in Yankees Stadium (old or new), and while any achievement involving strike outs is considerably more likely to be attained now than I guess literally ever, this is quite a feat all the same! You will recall, for instance, that both Dave Steib and Roy Halladay were really good, and yet they had not done this. Matz -- and Chatwood and Romano, who allowed one run between them in relief -- gave the Blue Jays every chance to end their fairly dark losing streak, and end it they did, what with, also, all of the dingers: Grichuk late, Gurriel earlier, and, before either, Vladimir Guerrero Jr.'s league leading sixteenth of this still-young season (there are like a hundred and fifteen games left!). There is obviously now league-wide talk of Vladdy as an early MVP candidate, especially with Mike Trout hurt, but even if Vladdy's fairly absurd pace continues I see that as almost a long shot so long as Shohei Ohtani stays healthy and at something resembling his present form: even were Ohtani to come up a little short statistically on total value, and even though he plays for a depressingly bad team ("Shohei Ohtani Regrets Not Researching Which Teams Were Good Before Signing With Angels" -- The Onion), what he is doing this year might never happen again, so let's probably recognize it, yeah? But what I am watching with the weathermost of weather-eyes is whether (haha!) or not Vladdy is going to be able to put up the best fWAR season of any Blue Jays first baseman ever. At this point, I would be genuinely surprised if he does not beat both of Fred McGriff's best (1988 and 1989 -- when McGriff was not much older than Vladdy !), all of the Carlos Delgado years except for 2000, and although it still seems a tall order to do better than John Olerud's weirdly slept-on 1993 (8.1 fWAR! that's so many!), it would be foolish to rule it out. At his current pace through forty-four games, he would be at like 11 fWAR over 162, but that can't happen, right? If it did, it would knock Roger Clemens' 1997 (10.7 fWAR, which is still hard to believe) out of the top spot as the best single-season performance in team history. And wouldn't that be neat!

KS  

2021 Game Forty-Six: Rays 14, Blue Jays 8

 

This part was good

Hey. Hey. Nobody, least of all me, wanted to see the first inning today pretty much be the ninth inning from yesterday all over again, with walks and nonsense and a grand slam and a Pete Walker ejection (not all of that stuff happened yesterday but I am unbothered by that aspect of this); nor did the seven runs (seven!) Tampa put up in the top of the eleventh hold much appeal. But what happened in between? Well, a lot of good stuff! I am fond of each of the Blue Jays home runs, for instance, and for those Blue Jays who elected to hit them: Teoscar Hernandez, Lourdes Gurriel Jr., Marcus Semien, and, twice (including once ridiculously), Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who is/has plainly been the best hitter in baseball so far this season. The Blue Jays are back down to .500, but head to New York only five-and-a-half games out of first, which is not so bad when you are currently playing the worst baseball you are likely to manage all year, and the team that is in first has won ten in a row (they are the Rays, and four of those ten were against us just now, but again, big picture hear, folks). If the 2021 Blue Jays are a .500 team, they are setting up to be the most fun .500 team in Blue Jays history, with the most exciting young hitter we have ever had, and I am very content for that to be our summer together. But if they can figure it out and stay in the mix a little while, that'd be fun, too.

KS

KS 

2021 Game Forty-Five: Rays 6, Blue Jays 4

 

The exact opposite of how I feel

Boy, that ninth inning, huh? I continue to have no real problem with either Tyler Chatwood or Travis Bergen, but in candor I've got to say that was way too many bases-loaded walks for my enjoyment. Three of them is a lot! The Rays barely got the ball out of the infield, and scored four runs, spoiling not just a really good outing from Hyun-Jin Ryu, and a lovely day for Téo, but Randall Grichuk's two-run home run in the eighth, which felt like a huge, huge hit at the time. But nope! It sure wasn't! A rough afternoon, to be sure, and a really rough week altogether. One of the wags on twitter.com has suggested that this was the most dispiriting weekend of Blue Jays baseball he can recall, but one of the many gifts of age is that I have seen an awful lot of baseball, and an awful lot of awful baseball, and have watched much, much worse teams do way less interesting things on many a weekend. This is arguably a weird flex on my part, but I flex in this manner (weirdly) only to urge calm, much as Jesse Barfield has been doing, also on twitter.com (there are all manner of "accounts" on it). It's only May, Jesse reminds us. These are all pretty much the same guys who looked amazing two weeks ago, we might add. They were not as good as they looked then (except for Vladdy) and they are not as bad as they look now (Vladdy still looks great).

KS

2021 Game Forty-Four: Rays 3, Blue Jays 1

 

Times have gotten so tough even Marcus Semien
is making errors (well just one [not on this play])

In the midst of a four-game Blue Jays losing streak (unlike the Rays, who have won nine straight!), I have elected to remain positive, and to keep up the chatter: attaboy, Robbie Ray! Seven innings? Five hits? No walks? Seven strikeouts? Like a million grunts? Nice! Also positive: Hyun-Jin Ryu throws today, so there is every reason to think this little slide ends this afternoon. Coming into this brutal ten-game stretch against good teams in the division, I felt like as long as the Blue Jays come through it more or less intact -- I don't need a winning record here, or even five and five; four and six would be fine! -- they are set up for a really nice run as the schedule not only softens up, but like really softens up. And I think this is still within reach! It would be a drag, though, to only win the Ryu games.

KS

2021 Game Forty-Three: Rays 9, Blue Jays 7 (F/12)

An ill wind, I guess you could say

Rather than the twelfth-inning Francisco Mejía grand slam, or even the baffling Charlie Montoyo decisions that played no small part in getting us there (a two-strike bunt from a bad bunter with two on and nobody out? Four intentional walks in extra innings?), I am choosing instead to think about a wonderful moment that occurred hours (weeks?) earlier, in the third inning: the broadcast went to tape (from a day or so before [home whites, rather than the dark blues]) that showed Vladimir Guerrero Jr. make his way slowly but steadily along the Blue Jays dugout, a special handshake or little dance or merry routine for every teammate and coach he encountered. It was utterly delightful, and I can say that with considerable certainty, because of how utterly delighted I got. And then the broadcast cut back to the live game just in time to see Vladdy launch a two-run shot off of no less a guy than Tyler Glasnow. What I am about to say next would be true even if he hadn't hit another two-run home run in the (ultimately futile) bottom of the twelfth inning, but Vladimir Guerrero Jr. has quite clearly been the best hitter in Major League Baseball so far this season, as you can tell by looking at whichever manner of statistic or metric you prefer (tastes vary, I get it). We're only a quarter of the way through, so who knows how this ends up, but right now, so far, he's been the best, and it has been just enormously fun to watch. It is at the same time likely he will get better than this, in that few hitters reach their peak at age twenty-three, yet also unlikely he will ever get better than this, as hitters don't get much better than this. But I guess we'll just see!  

KS   

2021 Game Forty-Two: Red Sox 8, Blue Jays 7

 

Oh no

I am sad to report that Rafael Dolis and I are on the outs. Honestly, it has nothing to do with Dolis blowing a ninth-inning lead, as this was the first ninth-inning lead well and truly blown not only by Rafael Dolis this year, but indeed by any Blue Jays reliever, which is actually pretty wild, and plainly unsustainable. Nor is it because I think he is not a cool guy, because I think that he is in fact a cool guy, and I like that he pitched for a while in Japan, an inherently interesting thing to have done. But what I have decided is that I can no longer abide Rafael Dolis, or indeed any reliever, pitching with such blatant disregard for bedtimes. If there is an active pitcher (a term I must use loosely in this context!) anywhere in either league who works more slowly than Rafael Dolis, I don't know who that could be, and please do not tell me about him. It's too much. I need to go to bed.

KS

2021 Game Forty-One: Red Sox 7, Blue Jays 3

 

Not at all what you want to see.

After Ross Stripling got utterly shelled for five runs in the first, the hope going into the home-half of the inning was that maybe the Blue Jays could put up two or three, and turn it into a wild one, maybe? And sure enough Marcus Semien walks, Bo Bichette doubles, and we're on our way, right? Except Luis Rivera totally blew it at the third base, and put up the "stop" after Semien had already tucked his head and started charging hard around third on a play it looks like he totally could have scored on. Instead, he was completely in no-man's land by the time Rivera's too-late message reached him, and he was picked off trying to get back to third. Semien was quietly but visibly not happy, and he is a super professional dude, so that quiet-yet-visible unhappiness spoke volumes. This is not the first time this year Luis Rivera has drawn attention to his work at third, and I've got to be honest with you, I'm not thrilled about it! What could have been a big inning ended up with a lone run -- Bichette, on Vladdy's subsequent double -- and my hopes were ruined. Buck Martinez and Pat Tabler seemingly found no fault with Rivera's work here, but to me it sure looked faulty, and I just don't see how Marcus Semien, of all people, gets that play that wrong if not for shoddy input from the third base coach. Would any of this have mattered, given the state of the Red Sox bats last night? Almost certainly not! And yet I remained preoccupied with this issue throughout the evening and well into today. Such is the nature of baseball, and -- who could doubt it? -- of baseball feelings. 

KS

2021 Game Forty: Blue Jays 8, Red Sox 0

 

I like Vladdy's mitten

Not the best game of the year as in "hoo boy! what a game!", but the best game of the year as in "oh man, what a team." Everybody hit last night, all the way down to the number nine spot, with Danny Jansen going two-for-three with a walk. Eighteen hits! Vladdy and Téo and Lourdes each three-for-five! Grichuk with a double and a two-run homer, striking blows against Keith Law's seemingly immutable evil! And Hyun-Jin Ryu totally carved up the best run-scoring team in baseball (so far), just four hits (no walks!) over seven complete, striking out seven along the way. Ryu pitched out of a lightly-ticklish fourth inning like it was nothing. Bergen, Chatwood, and a returning Rafael Dolis kept things scoreless the rest of the way for the Blue Jays' third shutout win of the year, and I believe I read that their +44 run differential is the best in baseball. And they still have, objectively, just a tonne of guys hurt. So long as those guys are joined by neither Vladdy or Ryu, this team that is already really good could turn out to be at least somewhat monstrous as we get deeper into things. A win tonight would mean first place! Let's see!

KS

2021 Game Thirty-Nine: Blue Jays 10, Phillies 8

 

Bring it on in, Marcus Semien.

This one was an absolute blast, and I speak not of Vladimir Guerrero Jr.'s third home run in as many days, which was itself an absolute blast, one estimated at 464 feet (remember to calculate the horizontal and vertical components of a trajectory independently -- that's a tip for all you kids out there taking grade eleven physics right now), though I understand your confusion. After Marcus Semien and Bo Bichette led off with back-to-back home runs, it looked the Blue Jays were really going to have a monster inning until poor Rowdy Tellez grounded into an inning-ending double play. The second was even more fun, with Santiago Espinal's triple (savour every triple, because you do not get to see that many -- that's another one for the kids), then just a whack of doubles and stuff until poor Rowdy Tellez lined into his second consecutive inning-ending double play. Robbie Ray was terrific until he wasn't, and the bullpen didn't exactly lock it down after that, which led to a wild afternoon all around, but striking out a pinch-hitting Bryce Harper (who followed up five-times-on-base Friday by messing up his shoulder on Saturday) to end was pretty neat! It is pleasing to have taken two of three from the Phillies, as the Blue Jays are really in it now: ten straight against the Red Sox, Yankees, and Rays. The AL East is shaping up to be a bloodbath, with four teams at twenty-two wins or better right now, at a time when there are other divisions in baseball with just the one. I take some comfort in the weird fact that New York and Boston haven't played each other even once yet, and so that's nearly twenty games of those two teams just kind of beating up on each other coming up, and maybe the Blue Jays can sneak on through with a whole bunch of wins over let's say Baltimore (no diss)? Red Sox up first, though, with the Blue Jays just a game and a half back.

KS

2021 Game Thirty-Eight: Blue Jays 4, Phillies 0

 

I will not be silenced
with regard to liking Vladdy Jr

A few batters and twenty-six pitches in, it looked like it was going to be a long night for Anthony Kay, or rather a short night for Anthony Kay and a long night for me, and yet this did not prove true! Kay gave about as much as one could reasonably have hoped for, with just three baserunners in four innings, plus he struck out six. The bullpen, which had an uncharacteristically bad outing the night before, went Bergen, Cole, Chatwood, Romano, and that was that, just the second shut-out for the Blue Jays so far this year. Vladdy hit another home run (his tenth!) and, just as cheeringly, Biggio and Gurriel had a pair of hits each. If those guys really get going, that'd be, like, seven guys who are currently really going, which is a couple more than you even need, honestly. But it would definitely be worth trying it just to see.

KS

2021 Game Thirty-Seven: Phillies 5, Blue Jays 1

 

He's . . . in there?

First of all, I don't even feel like it is fair to say that a bullpen "blew" a game by not holding onto a 1-0 game; that is simply not how I feel about that situation (guys, guys, guys: one run? why is Vladdy Jr. the only guy hitting bombs tonight? why would we even pluralize it given the paucity of bombs?). But even if we were to say that the bullpen blew this one, it would be indefensible to be upset by our league-best bullpen having one night which did not go as well as hoped, such that there were all of these walks and then several doubles. And so I am sanguine, in no small part because Matz had a good start. I do worry a little, though, about how all of the remaining games in Dunedin (before the Blue Jays "shuffle off to Buffalo," haha!) are against good teams. The Blue Jays schedule has been unusually tough to this point, but that can only mean lots of Baltimore and Detroit soon, and, one hopes, indefinitely. 

KS 

2021: Game Thirty-Six: Toronto 8, Atlanta 4

 

9 K's!

Until the Blue Jays blew it open with a four-run ninth, this was a wonderful, back-and-forth game on what looked like a lovely getaway-day afternoon in Atlanta. I hadn't even realized that the game had started when my old friend Adrian sent me a picture of Vladimir Guerrero Jr. taken from Adrian's seat down the first-base line. It was Adrian's first game of the year, and he picked a good one! Until, like I say, that ninth inning, which of course I enjoyed a great deal, but which I suspect was not as much fun in the park. Pretty much every Blue Jay had a passable day at the plate, by the end of it, but I am particularly cheered by Cavan Biggio's two-for-three with a double and two walks, and Téo's two-for-four with a walk (Bo Bichette can knock in three runs on a couple of hits and it just feels like a regular thing for your twenty-three-year-old shortstop to do at this point). Ross Stripling had a did some classic "settling in after early jitters," a phenomenon which took on a different hue when I finally (and only recently!) encountered data that indicated quite clearly that run expectancy was demonstrably higher in the first inning than in any other, which makes sense, because of how that is when the best hitters are definitely going to be up (makes sense, right?). Mayza struggled in relief, but Payamps, Bergen, and Romano combined to allow but a single baserunner between them in three innings of work. The Blue Jays swept not just the series but indeed the season series over Atlanta with the win, and now sit at 20-16 on the year, a mere game out of first place in the AL East -- and I'm stoked! Also stoked: the internet, over Vladimir Guerrero's light-hearted mimicry of Jordan Romano's quirky delivery. Perhaps you would enjoy to see it?  

KS

2021 Game Thirty-Five: Toronto 4, Atlanta 1

 

It truly was a Ryu day

I liked Marcus Semien driving Cavan Biggio in with a double to tie it in the sixth; I liked Teoscar Hernandez's home run in the seventh to pull ahead; and I especially like Téo's two-run shot in the ninth (Bo Bichette aboard!) to seal the deal. But what I not-just-liked but full-on-loved was watching Hyun-Jin Ryu out there pitching, just out there pitching, as the craftiest lefty of the age, and by a lot. Did you know that since 2018, only likely-Hall-of-Famer Jacob De Grom has a better ERA in all of baseball? I didn't! Although you knew that Ryu is hard to run against, did you know that he has allowed only seven stolen bases in his career (that's like one a year!), and that there have only been something like thirteen attempts against him? I didn't! But Dan and Buck were full of all kinds of interesting stuff last night, and they were obviously having a heck of a time watching Ryu pitch. It's just such a pleasure. Last night, he soft-tossed his way through seven innings of five-hit, one-run baseball, and it was just perfectly lovely to see.

KS

2021 Game Thirty-Four: Toronto 5, Atlanta 3

 

I think that one's going

A really, really impressive "settling in after some early jitters" from Robbie Ray in this one, as the twenty-six-pitch first inning left me resigned to a long, slow night of no fun, but Ray really kept it together, and the Thornton/Chatwood/Romano bullpen, once handed off to, continued to look (somehow) like the best bullpen in all of baseball (somehow). Téo's little chopper between first and second (with nobody covering first!) to plate a key run was a lovely little moment of baseball, and Marcus Semien continues to be the Blue Jays hottest hitter of late, but the real thrill of this game was the head-to-head feel of Ronald Acuña Jr., who homered, and Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who very much did likewise. Vladdy tied the game twice, the second time on a single to the left that probably would have scored two if it hadn't been hit 116.3 MPH, an unreasonable and actually unhelpful speed. Vladdy's little mini-slump seems to be behind him? Dan Shulman and Buck Martinez, who were great last night in the parts of the game I had on, noted that it was probably not fair to expect Vladdy to hit like .380 all season, but maybe it isn't actually? It becomes increasingly hard to say. Hyun-Jin Ryu on the mound tonight! 

KS

2021 Game Thirty-Three: Astros 7, Blue Jays 4

 

Oh no.

It is not everyday that I am like, "I like the way this Pat Tabler thinks," despite having actually grown quite fond of his interest in stroooooong haaaaaaaaands over the years, but yesterday I definitely felt that way: after the Astros got to not just Nate Pearson (who just did not have it at all in his season début) but also Anthony Kay to make 7-0, Pat wondered if Zach Greinke, with the big lead, might unleash a couple of his wildly charismatic eephus pitches. Oh man, maybe he will, Pat! He did not, and instead the Blue Jays had just such a five-hit, four-run rally that at once delighted, because of how it ruled, but also brought pain, in that it changed the three-runs Kay had allowed from "ah, who cares" to "dang it, Kay, it would have been tied now." And yet. Ah well. Off to Atlanta!

KS

2021 Game Thirty-Two: Blue Jays 8, Astros 4

 

An underrated element of the baby blues: 
the dark, matte-finished batting helmets

In open defiance of the deliberately mean things known smarty-pants Keith Law has had to say, both Cavan Biggio (two walks and a two-run homer) and Randall Grichuk (a double to knock in two, giving him 28 RBI on the season, second-best in the AL so far, to go with his .305/.346/.508, and he's been a "plus" defender this year if you "go to FanGraphs at all") were awesome, and Marcus Semien put it away with a three-run home run in the top of the ninth that he barely hit and that barely got out of the really very silly ballpark they have caused to have constructed in Houston (I think of it as "the new one" but it is apparently twenty-one years old). Dan Shulman noted that, according to Statcast, Semien's home run would have made it out of precisely one major league ballpark; how fortuitous, then that it was the one at which they were currently playing! But for real, it wouldn't have even made it out of Fenway. Give your head a shake, Minute Maid Park. A nice start from Steven Metz, and good stuff from the Chatwood, Romano, Bergen pen. Your second-place Toronto Blue Jays remain very much in second place at a totally credible 17-15, but have yet to be three games above .500 so far this season -- might Sunday be the day? Young fireballer Nate Pearson on the mound! Against ancient soft-tosser Zack Greinke! Could be good!

KS 

2021 Game Thirty-One: Astros 10, Blue Jays 4

 

It is the wrong Gurriel, though.

 

Okay, a bad start by Stripling and not a lot of help from the bullpen, and yet nevertheless there were things to like here: home runs from Bo Bichette, Teoscar Hernandez, and, weirdly enough, Danny Jansen for the second day in a row. Towering above all of those likeable things in sheer likeability though was Lourdes Gurriel Jr.'s backfooted-throw from left to nail Myles Straw at the plate on what should have been a fairly ordinary sacrifice fly, or at least a plausible one. If you have not seen it, I invite you to enjoy it here.

KS

2021 Game Thirty: Blue Jays 10, Athletics 4

 

Loved: By All?

Hyun-Jin Ryu was not at his very best in his first start since returning from the Injured List, where he had been sidelined with "a glute issue," but he was good enough to leave the game with the Blue Jays in the lead 5-4 when he left after the fifth. And then the bullpen -- Bergen, and Payamps, two innings a piece -- held the A's hitless, while the Blue Jays kind of went wild, with Marcus Semien the wildmost: four for six with a home run and a double! Cavan Biggio went three for five, Bo Bichette was three for four with a couple of stolen bases, and not only did Randall Grichunk homer (we are used to this), but Danny Jansen, too (we are not). (On catchers, still: it is sad, isn't it, that Alejandro Kirk looks to be out for kind of a while with a hip flexor.) All in all, a split in a four-game series in Oakland is entirely welcome, as was the getaway-day start time, which meant I could watch a bunch both in preparation of supper and in the aftermath thereof. On to Houston! Which would have been neat for George Springer, one assumes, but he remains at least somewhat injured himself. These woes! These injury woes!

KS   

2021 Game Twenty-Nine: Blue Jays 9, Athletics 4

 

I think he looks good; what's the issue

These 10:40PM starts have me going to bed in the fifth inning like I'm eleven years old, so I am still up when Randall Grichuk feels a little sheepish about having taken a huge turn towards second but scampering back to first on a long single, and so gets himself thrown out trying to steal second a pitch or two later (hey: I get it), but fast asleep by the time the Blue Jays score two in the ninth after a five-run eighth (one of the best kinds of eighths available to our practice). I saw video of the big rally, and the part I liked best was the squeeze play where Cavan Biggio's good-but-not-great bunt had the pitcher thinking he could possibly get Téo at the plate (he could not!) and so the good-but-not-great bunt became the best possible bunt, really. I don't think I knew that you would still score it a sacrifice in that situation, but I guess I see why: it would be a fielder's choice otherwise, right? And that wouldn't actually seem fair. Oh, just as good: the two-run double Vladdy ripped in the ninth was, as Dan Shulman suggested, pretty much the archetypal "frozen rope," and made me think of Dave Winfield a little, and that's always really pleasant (an MLBPA video I saw last year suggests Dave Winfield has aged as gracefully as one might expect). A Robbie Ray start always leads to an increase in pants-chatter, which I thinks is entirely overwrought at this point: his pants are tight; he looks good out there; that's it. Are Téo's pants any looser, really? I would argue no! And yet where is the chatter? Where. Also regarding Robbie Ray: he struck out nine in six innings, and hasn't walked anybody is three starts, which I did not see coming, but welcome. No less welcome is today's late-afternoon, getaway-day start, meaning several of todays innings should coincide with one's early-evening chorings. 

KS

2021 Game Twenty-Eight: Athletics 4, Blue Jays 1

 

Honestly I Had Never Heard of This Guy
and He Was Great: The Oakland A's Story

Cole Irvin, with whom I was not familiar, allowed but three hits and walked one whilst striking out nine in eight innings of work, which would have been a legitimate problem even if Anthony Kay hadn't allowed four runs in the second. But he did! Thornton and Tice pitched very well in relief, it must be said, but Irvin was so good that it didn't much matter: Vladdy was kept off the bases for only the second time all year, and nobody else really did all that much better. Although on the whole a drag, to this game's credit, it was a brisk 2h16min affair, which you'd have to think will be the fastest Blue Jays game we'll see all year, probably, right? 

KS

2021 Game Twenty-Seven: Athletics 5, Blue Jays 4

 

Marcus Semien: by all accounts,
a very nice man.

As much as I welcome a series against the A's -- always an interesting team! for the many reasons we know so well! -- these 10:40 games are just a killer, although I acknowledge that my choice to live essentially in the Atlantic ocean is to blame for at least a portion of that wild start time. And so I glean what I may from the clips that make it to Twitter (the Oakland fans were lovely to the returning Marcus Semien; the Blue Jays put some hits together for a three-run third; Steven Matz was, like, significantly unhappy in the dugout after allowing five-runs in five innings of work) and from, of course, the box score (Vladdy went three-for-four, and has been on base in twenty-six of the Blue Jays' twenty-seven games so far), and content myself with that, for the most part, because even though this game wrapped in a perfectly reasonable two hours and forty-five minutes (so sayeth the box score), there is no way I am staying up to 1:25AM; I just can't. But of course I wish everyone the best. 

KS

2021 Game Twenty-Six: Toronto 7, Atlanta 2

 

I just think he is a cool guy.

Nice job, Ross Stripling! Pitched into the fifth, allowed just the two runs on five hits and a walk . . . if you are looking for more than that out of Ross Stripling, you are welcome to seek, I suppose, yet the discontent you find will be utterly of your own making. That the bullpen -- Borucki, Chatwood, Phelps, Payamps, Dolis -- were excellent behind him is, weirdly enough, not even slightly surprising at this point, and yet it would seem churlish not to note it. As for the bats: Danny Jansen had been in an awful slump, with no hits in his last thirty-five ABs (man, that's a lot of them), before he knocked in a run with a single in the second, and Marcus Semien had a nice day with a two-run homer late and oh yeah also a double that scored both Bo Bichette and Vladdy earlier. And so a sweep of Atlanta! What a pleasure! I never really see Atlanta play, so it was a treat to watch Ronald Acuña Jr., and it was even more treaterly for his only home run all weekend to have not caused any real problems. These three wins put the Blue Jays at 14-12 on the year, and now that they are comfortably yes comfortably above .500 it is time to check in on the American League East standings, where we see that Blue Jays a mere 1.5 back of the Red Sox, who I still do not believe to be as good as I suppose they now quite plainly are, and a full game ahead of the Yankees, who just swept the Tigers and may be "figuring it out." Up next, the A's for four! From the lovely little ballpark in Dunedin to the sad coliseum disfigured to serve a football team that has since just totally left town! It will be in some ways far less æsthetic; and yet I am psyched for it.

KS

2021 Game Twenty-Five: Toronto 6, Atlanta 5 (F/10)

 

Dan Shulman has vowed to never say
"Springer Dinger" on air; but we'll see.

I was briefly called away with the bases loaded in the Atlanta-half of the second inning, and returned a moment later to find the score 4-0, and figured well, I guess that's that! And yet it was not, because, among other occurrences, George Springer hit his first two home runs as a Blue Jay (one of them went 470 feet!), both on 3-0 counts, which is pretty wild (Alejandro Kirk had the 3-0 green light the night before). Aside from Lourdes Gurriel's game-winning single in the 10th, one must also remark upon third base coach Luis Rivera's straight-up egregious send of Randall Grichuk on Gurriel's RBI double in the sixth: Grichuk was out by a mile, and instead of having the tying run at third with one out, there was nobody on with two away. It was so galling. And yet, ultimately, here we are.

Eight Blue Jays pitchers, by the way! There is no way the bullpen stays this good all season so we have to enjoy this as thoroughly as we are able while there is still time. 

KS 

2021 Game Twenty-Four: Toronto 13, Atlanta 5

 

Yes; yes.

There was much to admire about all six of the Blue Jays home runs last night (or indeed about each of the six): Bo Bichette went to the opposite field; Randall Grichuk hit one off a hanger that you could see was a hanger seemingly the very instant it left Smyly's hand; Teoscar Hernandez is back from illness and apparently in fine form; Lourdes Gurriel Jr has had a rough start and so it's good to see him get going; and Alejandro Kirk hit two! My favourite moment out of the lot of them, though, was for sure Lourdes Gurriel's celebration at third base when Kirk's first (of his two!) went over the wall. It wasn't quite Ryan Goins on the José Bautista bat flip, but it was still a lovely moment. Kirk seems to be as loved as he seems loveable, which is an amount I would characterize as "a fair deal so." Another good start from Robbie Ray, and although Borucki had a hard time out of the bullpen, Payamps and Romano did not. Not that any of that mattered especially however as the Blue Jays hit six home runs (discussed above).   

KS