2022 Game Two: Blue Jays 4, Rangers 3

 

Bo got that one, and knows that he got that one,
and would like everybody to know that he knows
that he got that one (acknowledged).

Stop me if I have mentioned this before, but for the seasons in which I attended every Blue Jays game (one time), or nearly every Blue Jays game (a couple times), I very much preferred the second home game of the season (spacious seating, low-key vibes) to the opener (crowded, drunk). On the second day of the season, pretty much every reasonable person who might like to go to a baseball game has just done so (yesterday, even), meaning the only people who head down to the ballpark on day two are the deep enthusiasts, which is how a rowdy crowd of fifty-thousand or so dwindles a day later to a bookish crew of scorekeepers and slim-radio-bringers that gets announced as fifteen thousand but look more like seven. Or so it was in yore days: this year, the second game of the season drew 43,386 people, all of whom seemed entirely there, minus Friday night's glitterati (Home Plate Lady, Geddy Lee). And they saw a good game! Robbie-Ray-replacement (Robbie Rayplacement?) Kevin Gausman gave up a pair of singles in his first inning as a Blue Jay, and three runs on eight hits (no walks) in five innings overall, but his lauded splitter looked laudable throughout and he worked pretty quickly, so let us agree that he did a good job. The Blue Jays put two runs on the board in the first (these opposite-field RBI singles Vladimir Guerrero Jr is stroking to right field are so pure), drew even in the fifth on just a fantastic Bo Bichette homer off the facing of the second deck ("That," George Springer was seen to remark, "was gross"), and scored late on Santiago Espinal's second game-winning double in as many days (Raimel Tapia scurried about the bases exactly as promised). A delight all around! The bullpen of Richards, Garcia, Mayza, and Romano allowed only one hit in four innings of work, and Romano, assisted by two pretty nifty ninth-inning plays by Bo Bichette (a Tony Fernandez sidearm flip on a charged grounder, a deft leap to snag a liner), tied Tom Henke's team record of twenty-five straight saves (Romano blew his first save opportunity last season, then nailed the next twenty-three, plus then these two to start the year, is how the math on that goes).

Hyun-Jin Ryu on the hill looking for the Sunday sweep! We will be on the couch looking for very much the same! 

KS