2021 Game One-Fifty-Seven: Yankees 7, Blue Jays 2

this part was fun

The changeup Giancarlo Stanton smoked to the second deck for the three-run homer that put this game out of reach was as low and as inside as any pitch you will ever see hit for a home run ever. It was utterly absurd. Until then, it had been a tight, tense game, as befitted the occasion (thirty thousand in the stands!), but after that it became the kind of night where you run out all the relievers you had sort of forgotten you even had, if we are being totally honest about which guys we remember having. It was pleasing, certainly, to see Hyun-Jin Ryu return to form, more or less: three runs in a little under five innings is not at all a bad outing given that he is freshly returned from the injured list, and also from getting creamed lately, and the Blue Jays apparent decision to run all over defensively dodgy catcher Gary Sanchez is one I support wholeheartedly, even if it did lead to Bo Bichette (who had two of the Blue Jays three hits) running very much into an out at third base (Bo was probably safe, the replays revealed, but the throw beat him to the bag by an awful lot). This was a really tough one! But at least the game sustained that wonderful, tight playoff feel until the U11 set had to turn in for the night; whatever happens after that is just fodder for the morning report. It is a minor miracle that the Red Sox were beaten by the one-hundred-and-six loss (so far!) Baltimore Orioles, leaving the Blue Jays still just one game out of the final Wild Card spot, but the Yankees are now three games in the clear, and it'll probably be tough to gain much ground on them once the weekend rolls around: although the Yankees will be playing Tampa Bay, they'll only kind of be playing Tampa Bay, who one assumes will mostly be offering generous days of leisure to their regulars and getting their rotation set for the Divisional Series. Also, though I am aware that Seattle beat Oakland late last night to move a half-game ahead of Toronto, I feel that that is really beside the point now, and I am completely unconcerned by it (perhaps this is folly?). The 87-70 Blue Jays are now one game out of the playoffs with five games to go, which probably means being still technically in the race until some point this weekend, at which point that'll be that, and I will thank them (in my heart, but also in these electronic pages) for a wonderful season that I have enjoyed as much as any baseball season in my many years of them (baseball seasons). And yet, with Jose Berrios on the mound tonight, and Robbie Ray going Thursday, I still can't help but think we have a decent shot at two out of three from the Yankees? It's Gerrit Cole tonight, but the Blue Jays have hit him, and may yet again. And one low-key gets the sense (doesn't one?) that Vladdy is about to really get a hold of a couple.  

KS