2021 Game One-Forty: Orioles 6, Blue Jays 3

 

oh no

Well, it was I suppose inevitable that the Blue Jays would lose at least once in September, and now it is upon us. So ends the truly joyous eight-game winning streak, and so dies the dream of the Blue Jays first one-hundred-win season in team history, as their (pretty good!) record now stands at 77-63. Were the Orioles stealing signs, or was Robbie Ray tipping his pitches? Who can say, and yet it is definitely the case that the Orioles did an unusually good job of laying off the slider, and it is no less the case that utterly inconsequential Orioles managerial Brandon Hyde made a gross spectacle of himself by getting loudly and profanely aggressive towards Ray in a tirade that was totally picked up by the broadcast owing to how there was almost no crowd noise owing to how there was almost no crowd owing to how almost nobody wants to take in a baseball game in Baltimore even though they have maybe the nicest ballpark in the world for doing that. Hey Brandon, hey Brandon, hey Brandon: great job this year though man. You know that there are children around, right, guy? Not at the ballpark, so much, as nobody goes (tough season Brandon but seriously, seriously, seriously: great job this year man), but definitely children watching at home, some of whom would have heard every word of your deeply ineffectual toxic nonsense had they not been engrossed by a recent issue of National Geographic Kids at that precise moment. Anyway, I didn't care for it. 

Ray toughed it out after the three-run first, and the Blue Jays came back to tie it up through six, but Julian Merryweather's fairly disastrous two-homer, three-run seventh was the end of anything like that. I am not wild about putting Pearson and Merryweather, two oft-injured rookies who have barely pitched this year, into high-leverage situations, but this seems to be a thing that is going to happen? Can Montoyo, who is such a good player development guy, stop developing young players for even a second? I am being somewhat lighthearted when I say that, yet I am also concerned! I get that it can't be Mayza and Romano every night the rest of the way, but I sure wish it could be. Both the Yankees and the Red Sox lost, so no real harm done standingswise, and we've got two today (seven inning ones! our time to shine!), so a nice chance to gain on both teams regardless of what happens to either (go White Sox [this seems plausible], go Mets [oh no]).

KS