2021 Game One-Thirty-Seven: Blue Jays 5, Yankees 1

 

snagged it

As we previewed Tuesday night's game whilst standing around in our kitchen, the foremost point of interest was whether or not it was best that Steven Matz got the assignment opposite Yankees ace and Robbie-Ray-AL-Cy-Young-rival Gerrit Cole, or if you would rather it be Ray, or Ryu, or Manoah, or Berrios (this really has turned out to be quite a rotation!). It's not that it was a decision to be made, or anything, as this is just when Matz (who has been really good lately) came up in the rotation, but it's interesting to think about whether you want your best chance to win this one individual game, which would mean Robbie Ray, or if, by thinking about the arc of the four-game series, you accept that a Gerrit Cole game is the game you are least likely to win out of any of them, and so you would rather just run whoever up there, and save your best starter(s) for other, seemingly more winnable games. I think we decided that it was good that it was gonna be Steven Matz? And indeed it was, in that he scattered seven hits (and, crucially, no walks) over six innings for just a single run, and the bullpen (Soria, Mayza, Romano) pitched three perfectly clean innings in relief. "Ah, but what news of Alejandro Kirk, our young king," you rightly inquire, to which: two homers! Kirk had been designated to hit, and he took that designation seriously (also there was some very pleasant japery on Twitter suggesting Gerrit Cole's fourth-inning balk was because Kirk, standing at first, had him shook). Marcus Semien, perhaps unsurprisingly, added another home run, as he draws ever nearer forty, which is a wild, wild number for a second baseman. Yep, a 5-1 in over Gerrit Cole (who admittedly left early with hamstring tightness) in Yankee Stadium, on a night where our starter was Steven Matz, and neither Vladito nor Bo Bichette had a hit. Boston lost again, because of how the Rays are irritatingly clever and good, which means the Blue Jays now sit just two games behind the Red Sox for the final Wild Card spot, and just two-and-a-half behind the Yankees. Six in a row! Hottest team in baseball! It'll be no worse than a split in New York, with two shots to win the series, with Manoah and then Berrios on the mound. It has started to feel like this really might be happening! And yet it is all still so tenuous.  

KS