2021 Game One-Thirty-Eight: Blue Jays 6, Yankees 3

 

Téo

I admit that I lost heart, a little, when my least favourite Yankee -- Brett Gardner, whom my brother-in-law rightly characterized via SMS text message as "seem[ing] a bit much" (seems, madam? nay, it is; I know not "seems") -- hit a three-run home run off young Alek Manoah to tie it in the fifth. The three runs the Blue Jays scored had in the fourth, though of course pleasing, had also sort of not been, as the Yankee starter Luis Gil spent the early innings all over the place, just walking dudes indiscriminately, and yet the Blue Jays had a really tough time getting many of those selfsame dudes safely home. I was worried that Gil was going to be bad enough to be pulled early, but not quite bad enough to get touched up early? If you see what my cares were? And feel like validating them? Imagine, then, my delight, as the Blue Jays added a run in each of the seventh (Téo singles, Semien scores), eighth (Jake Lamb hits a sac fly to score Jarrod Dyson pinch-running for Lourdes Gurriel's triple), and ninth (Vladdy hit a rocket to the seats in left off of Aroldis Chapman), whilst the bullpen or Richards, Cimber, and Romano held everything together beautifully. Seven wins in a row! No fewer than three-of-four in the Bronx! With Berrios on the mound looking for the four-game sweep! Two back of Boston, a-game-and-a-half behind the Yanks! And not least of all, the dream of a team-best one-hundred-win season lives another day, as the Blue Jays hold fast at sixty-two losses. With twenty-four games to go, the Blue Jays would have to go 14-10 the rest of the way to finish with ninety wins, which does not seem unworkable. I believe I have already made abundantly (perhaps excessively?) clear my position that if you win ninety but miss the postseason you are blameless, but ninety really really ought to do it, this year, the way both the Red Sox and Yankees are playing (they are not at their best). Ninety-two would feel like a lock. It's hard to count on too many wins out of these six games we've got coming against the Rays, but those three more against the Yankees after we see a whole bunch of the Orioles and the Twins should be pretty interesting! And I am prepared to be interested. 

KS