2021 Game One-Twenty-Eight: Blue Jays 3, Tigers 2 (F/10)

 

Manoah described striking out Miguel Cabrera (more than once!) as "surreal"
which is actually how it feels when I do it on the computer or PS3, too

An extra-innings Blue Jays win! We really haven't had a lot of those! This one was great fun, though. Alek Manoah continued to pitch very much in the manner of a Yung Ace, doing just a lovely job into the seventh, and while Richards slightly blew the save (it really was only slightly), Soria pitched a scoreless eighth, and Jordan Romano gave up just the one hit going two innings (good! he's good! let's keep him out there for as long as he is willing!) for the win. Our king, Alejandro Kirk, homered from the cleanup spot in the sixth, Bo Bichette knocked in Grichuk in the seventh, and Vladdy slid home with utter recklessness on a tidy Corey Dickerson (look at the way he chokes up on the bat with two strikes, U11 girls out there; look at that that) single to left, chugging home so hard he stumbled around third in such a way that suggested he'd be out by ten feet when they got the ball in -- but he wasn't! Go, Vladdy; *go* Vladdy. Tonnes of fun, this one, though we must note with sadness that Bo Bichette's dream (or perhaps it was our dream for him) of a season without a single "caught stealing" is now dead: after successfully stealing second base in the first inning, and getting beaned in the ribs by the catcher's throw as he slid in, Bo tried to steal third on the very next pitch, perhaps thinking there is no way they would suspect a guy who just got beaned in the ribs at second to take off on the very next pitch, right? My working theory, though, is that the catcher deliberately beaned him in the ribs with the throw to second to lure him into trying for third. Anyway, they got him, or so the third-base umpire claims. I am convinced that they should have challenged the call at third base, though I am also convinced that video replay is a needless drag on the pace of the game (it's baseball, he's either safe or he's out or whatever, let's keep it rolling, it's not that important), so "whatevs." But that's it, twenty straight stolen bases before he was caught on his twenty-first attempt. Pretty neat! 

KS