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