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| Bo Bichette's helmet has never once stayed on |
I would like to begin by saying how pleasant I find it to watch the Minnesota Twins: Byron Buxton is arguably the most æsthetic active American League player (I can make no real claims about the National League and yet also I feel like show me your champion); Nick Gordon is so clearly related to Dee Gordon that I had to look it up and check (half-brother! "Flash" Gordon is their dad!); and Miguel Sano is so massive and uses such as disproportionately tiny bat that he looks like one of the mean sluggers from the Bugs Bunny baseball cartoon we all know and love. Their ballpark is lovely. Their uniforms are so clean. I am sorry that they had such a disappointing season.
To the game itself, though: I definitely would not have picked Danny Jansen to be the one to hit the three-run home run that the put the Blue Jays out in front early (and also for good) Sunday afternoon, but this would only be further evidence of the extent to which I am a fool, because he really took that one for a ride! And George Springer's second home run in as many days suggests that perhaps his long struggles are now behind him? A little? Maybe? And Alek Manoah kept getting out of trouble with super well-timed double-play ground balls! And Mazya and Cimber and Romano held the fort with scoreless innings behind him! And and and! Cleary it would have been a whole lot cooler to win three or even four of these games in Minnesota -- especially as it turns out you can't count on the Red Sox for anything -- but these last two games of the series really felt necessary (not yet mathematically, but certainly emotionally), and so imagine my relief that we have won them. In the late game Sunday night (used to love the ESPN games; now I find them unwatchable?), the Yankees beat the Red Sox again, which is not exactly what we needed, but nevertheless leaves the Blue Jays one game behind Boston for the road Wild Card Spot, and two games behind New York for the home one. Boston's schedule the rest of the way is very soft (Baltimore, Washington) and so while one can of course hope for a sustained, week-long collapse, it seems unlikely. With three games against the Yankees, the Blue Jays task is tall this week, but the last time we needed to beat the Yankees, we took all four in Yankee Stadium, so who knows? If we come out of the Yankees series in even okay shape, that's actually probably coming out of the Yankees series in pretty good shape, as the Blue Jays have the Orioles coming in for the final weekend whereas the Yankees have to play Tampa (who, one hopes, will not just be resting their starters [though that is of course their well-earned entitlement {to which they are entitled}]).
Obviously, my sincere hope is that the Blue Jays will play well enough in these final six games to snag a Wild Card spot free and clear, but if that is not in the cards, what I would like to see happen is the unlikely yet super enticing scenario outlined by poster "liljakeyplzandthnx," who notes that if the Blue Jays take two of three against the Yankees, the Yankees get swept by Tampa, Toronto goes one and two against Baltimore, the A's take two of three against Seattle and sweep Houston, the Mariners sweep the Angels, and Boston goes two and four, the American League Wild Card will end in a five-way tie, and if you check the the tie-breaker rules for a five-way, it is actually single-elimination バーチャファイター Virtua Fighter, specifically for Sega 32x. And I am here for it.
KS
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