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| this was a base hit! Vladdy stood in awe of it! |
First pitch came about an hour after it was scheduled, as New Westminster, British Columbia's Justin Morneau was rightly inducted into the Minnesota Twins Hall of Fame in a lengthy pre-game ceremony, surrounded by a gathering of thirty-four such Hall of Fame members, chaired by no less grand a presence than the treasured Rod Carew, now seventy-five ("I've got more action than my man John Woo / And I've got mad hits like I was Rod Carew," a poet once poesied). Once things got underway, I found this one a little tense! Robbie Ray clearly did not have his best command, as his fastball that usually (and importantly!) nicks the inside corner against right-handed batters was consistently off the plate and taken for a ball, but it is a testament to just how great Robbie Ray has been this year that, pitching sub-optimally, his line on the night is nevertheless but a run on three hits over six. George Springer more or less handled the rest, making a tremendous snow-cone catch on a ball ripped to the warning track to save runs early, and hitting a key two-run home run in the seventh off Barraclough (they pronounce it Bear Claw! like Newman ordering cookies at the coffee shop!) to put this one away. This more than made up for some baffling baserunning earlier that saw Springer just sticking around third as the Twins fired the ball around the horn for a 5-4-3 double play (dude, please score on that). Téo, too, homered, in the high and towering manner that has become his custom, lodging a ball firmly in the living wall which my wife rightly guessed to be of juniper (we looked it up!). (I still miss those breezy pines out there but I get it; I get it.) Still with homers, Marcus Semien hit his forty-third, which is to say that no second baseman in major league history has hit more home runs in a single season than Marcus Semien has now. He has seven games left to break Davey Johnson's record that has stood since 1973, and I bet he will! I think the only middle-infielder to ever hit more in a season would be Alex Rodriguez, which is both lofty company and kind of complicated owing to reasons. Ah, but I spoke too soon: "Mr. Cub" Ernie Banks had three seasons of forty-three or better, which is pretty wild. In any case, Baseball Feelings offers its most sincere congratulations to Marcus Semien upon this most recent attainment, and hopes Marcus hits like fifteen more as the season winds down.
Earlier in the afternoon, I had the WFAN radio broadcast on, which is to say I bore eager witness to John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman's tireless and yet so tired chronicle of the many ways in which the New York Yankees have disappointed them, and continue to disappoint them. It is strangely compelling to be around. I'm actually glad I switched it off before Stanton's eighth-inning grand slam to go out in front for good, which would have altered the vibe in ways I am sure would please me less. But what a pair, those two.
This is all to say that on the (Home Hardware?) out-of-town scoreboard, the Yankees won, the Red Sox lost, the Mariners lost (Ohtani hit two triples! that seems so hard to do!), and Oakland won, so with just a week to go, the Blue Jays trail both Wild Card spots by two games (New York and Boston are tied for them), and sit a game ahead of Seattle, two of Oakland. I can't say I am particularly interested in what either Seattle or Oakland do at this point, as their results are only of any significance when the Blue Jays lose, and if the Blue Jays lose at this point, then yikes. A Blue Jays win in Minnesota today with young Alek Manoah on the mound would mean the Blue Jays were necessarily just one game behind either New York or Boston for the second Wild Card spot, two games behind the other, as they head into The Big Series against the Yankees in Toronto Tuesday night. And this would be my strong preference.
KS
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