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| show 'em where you hit that last one, Téo |
As relieved as I am that the Blue Jays have ended their clumsy little three-game slide, I am mostly just happy that they got the game in before bedtime. Even when we lived in Toronto, these west-coast road-trips were too much, but on Atlantic time? Unworkable! A weird start for Steven Matz, whose run-on-three-hits-over-five is obviously great, and you would take it every time, but he struggled mightily with his command at times (consider the first inning, which saw two wild pitches and passed ball help a single come around to score), and ended up throwing kind of a lot of pitches, right? But, again, a run through five, you will take every single time, forever. Homeruns for Téo (who is raking these days), Grichuk, Dickerson (I really liked this one!), and Semien, and a nice three-for-four for Santiago Espinal, who also stole second despite a pitch out (a weird one though: the catcher set up farther outside than I have ever seen; it looked so weird that it bordered on creepy, somehow). Oh! Another neat baserunning happening saw Hernandez leading way too far off second, only for the catcher to throw it behind him to the shortstop, but it was a poor throw that skittered into centre field, and so Téo skittered on home. Loved it! A nice teachable moment for any U11 players that may have been passing through the room as it happened, too. I would have liked to see Cimber put up a cleaner eighth than he did (a two-run home run lacks cleanliness) but on the whole let us be grateful that we leave the west coast having gone three-and-four despite playing, at times, really quite poorly. Off to Washington, who have been somewhat bad since they traded their guys, and so I am hopeful.
So where do we stand, after this less-than-great west-coast swing on the heels of the loveliest home stand possibly ever? Better than you might think, actually: while the Rays are still a somewhat distant sight atop the AL East (7.5 games ahead), the Blue Jays sit 4.5 back of both Oakland and Boston for the Wild Card spots, with only the Yankees in between. This is really not that bad! Fourteen games left this month: two against Washington (sure), six against Detroit (okay), two against Baltimore (yes please), and four against the White Sox but hey maybe we can eek out a split? And then it's on to September, which is all games against i) the Orioles and ii) all the teams the Blue Jays need to catch. Please believe me when I tell you I am stoked for this.
KS
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