2022 Game Seventeen: Blue Jays 6, Red Sox 2

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The way Bo Bichette had been going -- and I mean the very specific way Bo Bichette had been going (consider, darkly, the first-inning, first-pitch double play ball he right back to Nathan Eovaldi earlier this same night) -- certainly made me fear the worst when he came to bat with the bases loaded and one out in the bottom of the eighth, tied at two after José Berríos' very fine start (some early hard contact, a slickly fielded 1-2-3 DP to get out of trouble in the second, before later cruising through twelve-straight Red Sox batters) had yielded to Adam Cimber's "blown save" (technically yes, but I mean come on). But all he has to do to be a hero now, I opined couch-north, is hit a fly ball. Well he sure did! Bo Bichette's first career grand slam came at quite a moment, and the way he reacted to it -- as though this was so obvious an outcome that it is weird that he even had to actually do it -- suggests that whatever further struggles may yet greet him, he will not lack for confidence in addressing them, or for a sense of the inevitability of his eventual triumph over them. Bo will, I would argue, be fine. 

Great game! Home runs from Gurriel (that's two games in a row) and Matt Chapman (another great play at third, perhaps unsurprisingly), and an unreal George Springer catch in left-centre that was so close to an exact replication of one he made last year that the Blue Jays twitter account put one on top of the other so that you might be weirded by the similarity (way ahead of you, Blue Jays twitter account; way ahead) -- under the heading, once again, of Certified Glover Boy. Lots to like! And José Berríos, aka La Makina, is such an easy player to get behind, a real classy pro of a guy, tipping his hat to the appreciative crowd in a genteel way but not making too much of a thing of it, either; José Berríos is like exceedingly show, but in a way that is distinct from the way in which Bo Bichette is (certainly no less) show; there is much to ponder as regarding the bounds of show; its contours, its strictures.

KS