2021 Game One-Thirty-Nine: Blue Jays 6, Yankees 4

 

un <<middle infield>> de qualité

If you had told me that, coming off of the deeply improbable weekend sweep of Oakland, the Blue Jays would go on to take three of four at Yankee Stadium, I would have been totally thrilled with that result (this is self-evident), and been like, "yes please." And so then why is it that, with the first three games already in hand, I had such a strong feeling that this one particular game was of such especial pitch and moment? (Little Hamlet Act 3 Scene 1 for you there and also it says "pitch.") How fortuitous, then, that Bo Bichette elected to just totally win it: his leadoff home run came with a strangely soft, limber swag (and was rightly giffed immediately), and his go-ahead single in the seventh, though less æsthetic, was no less welcome. Let's hear it, too, for Grichuk's fifh-inning homer (go Randal!) and the absolute rocket Vladdy ripped off Heaney in the ninth. Would we have rathered Nate Pearson not give up two solo home runs in the ninth, one against the fairly gross Luke Voit? I mean, absolutely. But after another solid Berrios start, and good work from Soria and Mayza, there was room to breathe (see also: the Vladdy homer). 

So that's eight in a row, to pull the Blue Jays to within a half-game of a Wild Card spot, and indeed to within a game-and-a-half of the first one, even, with plenty of September still to go. On the broadcast, they mentioned that this was only the second time the Blue Jays have ever swept the Yankees in a four-game series at Yankee Stadium, and as soon as they said so, my hand shot up (in my heart) to say that the first time was for sure 2003, the Blue Jays season I know best of all, and when this was confirmed a little later, I felt that it was my finest feat of baseball remembering quite possibly ever. And so I share it with you now.

Off to Camden Yards! Another four-game sweep is perhaps too much to ask, even against the somewhat lowly Orioles, but it sure would be good to win a few of these, as Tampa Bay comes in next week, and that is, to me, straight-up troubling.   

KS