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| 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
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