2022 Game Forty-Seven: Blue Jays 11, Angels 10

 

he did this twice

We sat down to this one just in time to watch Shohei Ohtani hit is first home run of the game; we must have been eating when he hit his second. This twenty-one-run game, that saw José Berríos chased in the third, and the Blue Jays explore dark corners of their bullpen best left unconsidered, in a sense exceeded all previously known things and ways, and yet was somehow familiar in its ramshackle endlessness(es). I don't know how many lead changes there were (it sure seemed like a lot!), but it was Bo Bichette's game-tying solo home run in the top of the eighth off of Ryan Tepera (remember him?) that made me think we might win this one for the first time since I super hubristically claimed that we had swept the series when the Blue Jays went up 6-2 in a four-run third (Apollo, friend, Apollo, he it was that brought these ills to pass; but the right hand that dealt the blow was mine, none other). Somehow amidst everything that happened, the Blue Jays managed to keep Mike Trout off the bases entirely (oh-for-five), which is maybe the wildest thing that happened all day, aside from it being David Phelps who was on the mound in the ninth to pick up the save (needless to say, his first of the year [hey Adam Cimber is 6-2 now, tied with Justin Verlander for the AL lead in wins]). I think my favourite moment in the game came approximately nine hours in, when, in the top of eighth, Vladimir Guerrero came up as a pinch hitter with the go-ahead run on second (Kirk had doubled) and a base open. Angels manager Joe Madden could be seen trying to get his pitcher's (maybe catcher's?) attention, yelling "Hey. Hey! Hey!" and then making a like a pointy-pointy motion. Joe Madden couldn't believe that nobody knew what that meant, or seemingly that he even had to communicate this obvious course of action, and was eventually reduced to just straight up shouting out "WALK HIM" (whereas my view is "pitch to Vladdy with a base open and the go-ahead run on second, you cowards" but I appreciate that our interests in this are not identical). Just a great big wild mess of a game, and a tonne of fun. Four game sweeps are rare things, and each must be savoured, but I did particularly enjoy these for games at Angels stadium, with the Japanese ads reminiscent of what, to me, will forever be the "dandy-house.co.jp" era of Ichiro Suzuki and Hideki Matsui; the Bandai-Namco ads with the little baseball caps on Pac-Man and one of the ghosts (I can never keep them straight, despite their cinematic introduction); and just the sheer facts of Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout. I would like to close today with a picture of Bo Bichette hitting his home run, and then several pictures of how Vladdy and Shohei Ohtani are friends. Thank you as always for your time.  

KS

2022 Game Forty-Six: Blue Jays 6, Angels 5

 

each release a pregnant moment of anticipation

This game started so late here: an 11:08PM first pitch! There was no way for me to stay up for all of this one, try as I might (I did not try even a little). It's pretty neat, isn't it, that both Yusei Kikuchi and Shohei Ohtani attended 花巻東高等学校, Hanamaki Higashi High School? Kikuchi was three-years older, so I don't know that they were pals or anything, though they do both seem really nice, so I can't rule it out. Ohtani was held hitless in this one, and Kikuchi finished off a really good May (sort of? it's so weird with him! and we love it!) with two runs allowed (though on nine hits) in five innings of work, and then like a million relievers came in, including Julian Merryweather, against my better judgement, if not Charlie Montoyo's (Charlie is the best, though; don't get it "twisted"). Merryweather promptly hit (grazed, really) Ohtani with a pitch and then gave up a homer to Mike Trout immediately thereafter. But it all worked out great, even if Romano looked super tired and fell apart in the ninth, and they needed to get Ross Stripling up and in to get the last out, don't worry! Half off the Blue Jays ten hits were doubles, and so runs were not in short supply. Four straight wins! No worse than three-out-of-four from the Angels! José Berríos on the mound looking for the sweep! Oh finally, I have found what I think will be the cover of Two On, Two Out: The Yusei Kickuchi story, a monograph I will never write despite its necessity (something of a livre sans livre, if you will). You will find that image below.

KS

 

2022 Game Forty-Five: Blue Jays 4, Angels 3

 

consider Shohei Ohtani, who was once handsome and tall as you
(arguably handsomer, probably taller)

Striking out as a pinch-hitter to end a one-run game on your own bobblehead night? A dark fate, but one endured by Shohei Ohtani in the Angels' 4-3 loss to your Toronto Blue Jays on Friday. Is this the first bad thing to ever happen to Shohei Ohtani? It seems possible. Will it be the last? Probably, yes. Alek Manoah was, once again, really really good, allowing three runs (though only two earned -- three Blue Jays errors on the night) on seven hits (no walks) in six complete innings; Yimi and Trevor Richards both pitched perfectly clean innings, and Jordan Romano struck out the side in the ninth. And the bats, the bats just chipped away, man, they just dunked it in here and there. Alejandro Kirk and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. led the way, and that's what we need, we need to extend that lineup, extend that batting order, as Pat Tabler is wont to say: get things back to where they were last year where you had to worry not just about one-through-four but five-through-eight as well (no diss, nine). My only complaint about this lovely game is that it was not available through the usual means of "being on the tv station (or computer phone equivalent for computers and phones) that Ted Rogers' ghost also owns" but instead was consigned to Apple TV+ or something, and it was brutal. It was brutal. I did not go through the many simple steps required to watch the game that I had figured I had probably already signed up to see (apparently not!), and instead had it on the radio and/or a grey-area, non-Apple TV+ (I am still not sure that is the name) streaming site that honestly has fewer sports betting ads associated with it than the league-approved sources. Most gallingly, the non-Sportsnet nature of Friday night's game meant no Blue Jays in Thirty the next day, and we were reduced to catching up with the MLB.com condensed game, which, I mean, actually they did a really good job. Fine. It was fine.  

KS

2022 Game Forty-Four: Blue Jays 6, Angels 2

look at the light though

hey Vladdy got another one

The Blue Jays had gone all month without a three-home-run game, and now they have two in as many nights, most recently against Shohei Ohtani, and not because he was all that off that mark: Ohtani struck out ten and walked only one in his six innings of work, and only allowed six hits; it's just that those hits just kind of went and went. Vladdy's first-inning fly out to deep left actually seemed like more trouble (I mean, not for me) off the bat than the actual homer he later ripped off the foul pole (more like the fair pole -- right, people?), although perhaps that is because George Springer's leadoff home run had preconditioned us to expect further first-inning trouble (I mean, not for me). Of the three dingers dung on this uncommonly beautiful evening (the way the sun kept finding Shohei Ohtani was ridiculous), the one that I find the most striking is Danny Jansen's. He's just been unreal! I read today that if you take his last one-hundred at-bats, going back to last season (as he has been hurt a lot this year), he's actually been the best hitter in baseball over that period, which is a wild notion. You'd think that it might be Mike Trout, who is having an emphatically great year so far after a few that were beneath his (nearly peerless) standard, but no. Oh hey, on Trout: of every pitcher Mike Trout has ever faced in his career ten times or more, the only one against whom he has not had a base hit is Hyun-Jin Ryu. How about that! In fact, coming into last night's game, he'd only hit it out of the infield against Ryu twice. Twice! And sure enough, Mike Trout, who would be a legitimate first-ballot Hall of Famer if he retired today, at thirty years old, went oh-for-four on the night, and left three on base. Hyun-Jin Ryu: still foolin' em. 

Anyway, this one was a complete delight, and even had a neat "did the runner jogging home touch home plate before the inning-ending tag-play at second base, or ever-so-slightly after" moment, which was very pleasing. As the 10:38PM start time was awfully late for us as a squad (even I fell asleep with the radio on in the seventh), a next-day screening of Blue Jays in Thirty proved vital, and while most (though not all) of us enjoyed it over moon mist ice cream in waffle cones, it seemed like maybe the best Blue Jays in Thirty ever, maybe? Just a premium situation all around.

KS 

2022 Game Forty-Three: Blue Jays 8, Cardinals 1

 

such a mighty wallop 

The boys! They were boppin'! That is the noise we were hearing! It felt like it had been weeks and weeks and weeks since the Blue Jays last put up eight runs (I actually checked, and it wasn't quite that long, but emotionally it was arguably even longer), and they certainly didn't need all eight, as Kevin Gausman was again tremendous (this is not shocking), but it sure was welcome, wasn't it: two home runs for Danny Jansen, one for Vladdy, and twelve hits altogether on the night, the kind of thing we thought we'd be seeing a lot more of this season. I would argue that there is still time for that.

KS  

2022 Game Forty-Two: Cardinals 7, Blue Jays 3 (F/10)

 

oh no

In a sense, I am glad that Paul Goldschmidt ended the game with a two-out, two-strike walk-off grand slam in the bottom of the tenth, in that least everybody in the ballpark will remember this as one of those amazing things that never really happen, and yet sometimes they do, and so you can't necessarily rule it out in any of the baseball games you go to that do not end like this at all. And it could have just as easily ended on a passed ball or something. But in another sense, no less real, I didn't like this ending very much at all. I am sure that you can appreciate the bind I am in. 

KS 

2022 Game Forty-One: Reds 3, Blue Jays 2

 

touch 'em all, Joe(y Votto)

"I thought I'd be more nervous," former Etobicoke Ranger Joey Votto said about this weekend's games, almost certainly the last few he'll ever play in Toronto. “But I didn't feel that way. I just felt more joy." It was meet and right that Votto homered toweringly in his final at bat of the weekend to give the Reds a 3-2 win and avoid the series sweep. And yet all the same, I would have been totally fine with it if the Blue Jays had scored a pair in the bottom of the eighth or ninth to erase that moment not utterly (in that it would still have meant what it had meant in the moment itself) but functionally (in that the Blue Jays would win [my strong preference]). Ah well. 

Another profoundly "Yusei Kikuchi" start from Yusei Kikuchi, in that, for all that he ended up allowing only two runs, the first inning looked so perfectly dire that they had to get Ross Stripling (like in that selfsame first inning!). Even within that first inning, Kikuchi looked both impossible to hit and also just plain impossible. I love this guy. I think there is a case to be made that Yusei Kikuchi is the most fascinating fifth-starter in Blue Jays history. I kind of can't wait to see where he leads us. 

KS  

2022 Game Forty: Blue Jays 3, Reds 1

 

Hazel avoids these like nineteen times out of twenty;
Vladdy was stealthy on this one

The last thing I saw before we broke for Look Ho Ho (Good Chinese Food since 1959) was Matt Chapman's unsuccessful bases-loaded at-bat in the bottom of the sixth that contained within it, if I may speak frankly, some pretty funny looking strikes. When we reemerged after generous portions of, among other delights, Look Ho Ho Cantonese Chow Mein (hey, you can't get it anywhere else), Bo Bichette had long since hit his second home run of the day to put the Blue Jays ahead by a pair, and for good: Alek Manoah was tremendous through eight, and eager though he was to pitch the ninth, he yielded to Jordan Romano, who had no trouble at all. The ontological and phenomenological mystery of Yusei Kikuchi is on the bump tomorrow! Lookin' to sweep! 

KS

2022 Game Thirty-Nine: Blue Jays 2, Reds 1

 

go Zimmer; *go* Zimmer

Two "hustle" doubles for Bradley Zimmer! He has not been much with the bat to this point in the season but man, he can really fly out there, can't he? What a nice game for him at the plate, especially after he took a poor route to a ball that might well have been caught but instead ended up a double, one of five (five! five doubles!) Hyun-Jin Ryu allowed without giving up a run, which is a deeply odd thing to have happened (no walks at all seems to be part of the solution to this quandary). Bo Bichette doubled in the winner, and continues to look more like Bo Bichette than he had in previous weeks. Everybody did great! Joey Votto is in town! He doubled! What's not to like! Except for the awful hats everybody has to wear!

KS    

2022 Game Thirty-Eight: Mariners 5, Blue Jays 1

 

that's lanki*er*, Gausman, sure;
but I've still gotta ask you to lanken up

Weird how well the Mariners were laying off the splitter, wasn't it? I wonder if Kevin Gausman was maybe tipping his pitches a little? Or maybe the Mariners were just very well coached in this regard. Either way, Gausman put together a fine enough start: two runs on seven hits and a walk (a walk!) in five innings, although he did allow his first home run of the season (to the catcher Cal Raleigh, of all people). He might as well have allowed a dozen, for all the Blue Jays bats mustered. After the fairly awful road trip, a sweep against the slightly troubled Mariners would have felt pretty good, but we must always content ourselves with two-out-of-three I suppose (can't get in too much trouble taking two of three, can you). I am eager to see the Cincinnati Reds come to town for the weekend, because of how they had like an "almost historical" bad start to the year (though they are hotter than the Blue Jays in their last ten [yikes]), definitely, but mostly because it will allow us to enjoy the rare homecoming of beloved weirdo Joey Votto as he nears the end of what might very well prove to be a Hall of Fame career. Long may he run, obviously, but there comes a time. And the Reds come through so seldom. 

KS

2022 Game Thirty-Seven: Blue Jays 3, Mariners 0

 

Vladdy is happy for José Berríos

Much like the great Dan Shulman, I am all-out-of-proportion-fond-of-it when a starting pitcher tips their cap to the appreciative crowd as they are relieved after a fine start. And so I am quite possibly all-out-of-proportion-fond of "La Makina" José Berríos, who is a real cap-tipper. Berríos is such a lovely guy to watch pitch, and seemingly just a lovely guy -- there is a kind of timeless classiness (classy timelessness?) to his demeanor that makes it seem like he could fit seamlessly into any era of baseball over at least the last fifty years or so. I just find him an appealing guy, is all. Also appealing: George Springer's bases-clearing, three-run bloop triple that ended with a grinning Springer making one-handed gun-fingers (and so gun-finger, then; singular, I suppose) towards the Blue Jays dugout while he was still tummeroo-down in the dirt. And how did "the boys" respond, you might ask? By hootin' and hollerin', more or less, have a look:

A little blurry but also very clear

That's Blue Jays baseball! It's really a lot of fun! Also it was nice to see Adam Cimber get the save in Jordan Romano's absence (tummy troubles of the kind that require medical intervention; not good). 

That's the series! Gausman to the hill looking for the sweep! Let's go! 

KS

2022 Game Thirty-Six: Blue Jays 6, Mariners 2

 

Leading off for your Toronto Blue Jays: natural light

What a fine evening for baseball, this José Berríos Replica Jersey Night (seriously, they were giving away jerseys; these were no mere sherseys, friends [and a shersey would be fine]). Bo Bichette hit a first-inning solo homerun on a hanging curveball that looked like a homerun the second it left Chris Flexen's hand, like a truly astonishing hanger of a curveball, perhaps a record-setting one; Matt Chapman added a solo homerun to straightaway-centre on a far less juicy pitch but one that was no less parked; and Yusei Kikuchi had his third great start in a row. On Pete Walker's advice, Kikuchi is throwing about twice as many fastballs as he has previously cared to, and I have read that what has really freed Kikuchi up to go all-in on this approach is the team's assurance that they do not need to see immediate results from this new method; they merely need to see the new method. Yet the results, so far, have been fantastic: Kikuchi took a no-hitter into the fifth, and allowed only one hit and three walks through the six innings he ended up pitching. With Tim Mayza out, and Jordan Romano apparently kind of not feeling too great (he was up and throwing for a minute; I'm not sure what's going on right now), the late innings could be a slightly wild ride for a little bit, and we saw both the good (Garcia, Cimber) and the bad tonight (Richards, Stripling). But some nifty fielding (a smooth over-the-shoulder snag by Vladdy, some tricky hops handled expertly by Bo Bichette) helped us out of a couple ticklish situations before four late-inning runs (Alejandro Kirk knocking in Bo and Vladdy with a seventh-inning pinch-hit single stands out here) made this one a little more comfortable. A lot to like in this one! 

KS

2022 Game Thirty-Five: Rays 3, Blue Jays 0

 

Alek Manoah is only one inch shorter than Aaron Judge
but the mainstream media (through which I learned this fact)
doesn't want you to know that

Hey: hey: h e y:  nobody wants to lose three-nothing to the Rays, wasting another excellent Alek Manoah start whilst Matt Chapman, of all people, commits two errors, to wrap a two-and-seven road trip. That's objectively brutal. And yet I have decided not to especially mind, and just be like, "man, rough road trip, right?" and let that be the end of it (emotionally). Were the playoffs to begin today (which I know that they do not), we would be in them, and we are back home for a week of eminently winnable games against the struggling Seattle Mariners (1977 expansion cousins!) and the genuinely suffering Cincinnati Reds (if Joey Votto does not make the trip everyone will be sad). Whether the Blue Jays had done tremendously this last week on the road, rather than distressingly awfully, the task this week would be identical: gotta go win a bunch of winnable games, fellas. 

Also, I liked that Alek Manoah was really nice about the baffling Matt Chapman situation after the game, saying that even Matt Chapman is allowed to have a bad day. Let us all enjoy the freedom that thought might grant us.

KS 

2022 Game Thirty-Four: Blue Jays 5, Rays 1

 

Hey Téo hey Téo hey Téo: great job, Téo

Okay, phew, okay: home runs from Téoscar Hernandez (we love him) and the returning Danny Jansen (I've got no problem with Danny Jansen) in a four-run eighth, a nifty first-start back for Hyun-Jin Ryu, and just two hits and a walk from the bullpen in its four-and-a-third innings of work (some slick defense did some of the lifting in this regard [as well it should]). A five-game losing streak is exactly where things get concerning, if you are me, and I felt concern, but now on the strength of just one game against the Rays' unstrongest starter, let us say, I am in a state of utter calm, like, hey, have a look at the standings, the Blue Jays have been "in a playoff spot" this whole time, what were we even worried about? A little bump in a road, a couple bad bounces, that's all. Alek Manoah on the hill tomorrow to try and win the series, all systems are go, everybody. All: systems (are go).

KS 

2022 Game Thirty-Three: Rays 5, Blue Jays 2

the æsthetic: is outrun

A cursory glance at the box score would suggest that the bullpen blew this one (three runs in the bottom of the eighth in a 5-2 loss), which is not untrue, but when the Blue Jays turned two-on, nobody-out in the top of the inning into just one run, and ended the inning real quick on a Bo Bichette "K" and a Vladdy "GIDP," and came away with a tie (on the road) rather than a lead (on the road), that seemed pretty definitive. It's sure how I felt about it at the time, anyway! The weirdest part of this game, for me, was learning that the "warning track" at the irredeemable Tropicana Field is a false track that in truth offers no warning, in that rather than grass yielding to dirt, or artificial turf yielding dirt, or even just one kind of artificial surface transitioning to another to give the outfielder a feel (or "warning") for how close they were to the wall, it is just the same surface painted brown. Which is unbelievable. I thought it was pretty strange that George Springer went up when and how he did to try and snag a ball that, alas, went unsnagged, but that's why! Also he hurt his ankle on the play and is day-to-day. That's five losses in a row, none of them a whole lot of fun. And this was a Gausman start! You only get so many! 

KS 

2022 Game Thirty-Two: Yankees 5, Blue Jays 3

 

Vladdy: loves to field; like he just L O V E S it.

I mean, who knows, but you'd probably expect that the day game after a super demoralizing night game might see the Blue Jays come out a little flat, and that's sort of how this one read, right? Berrios was not awful, but certainly wasn't good (five runs in five-and-a-third), and there was just some carelessness, like Bo (who went three-for-five, and really does seem to be coming through it) misreading a passed ball and just standing around second (he was embarrassed about it), or Alejandro Kirk making an indifferent turn around that very same bag and getting tagged out on a weird play. There's nothing inherently terrible about a 5-3 loss to the Yankees in Yankee Stadium, but this was just not a crisp one, you know? Or so it seemed to me through the baseball-on-the-radio stylings of the excellent Ben Wagner as I performed a moderate number of household chores.

KS

2022 Game Thirty-One: Yankees 6, Blue Jays 5

 

not pictured: the already-ejected Pete Walker

Objectively, this was one of the best baseball games I have seen so far this season, but subjectively, man I wish Jordan Romano had not thrown all those sliders. If you're going to lose to the Yankees on a three-run, walk-off Aaron Judge home run after having pulled ahead in super dynamic fashion in the eighth (go Vladdy; go Vladdy), you'd like to see that happen against your best pitch, I think, rather than on a slider up (which slid insufficiently). But what can you do! The wildness of the sixth inning was truly wild indeed, and is covered expertly in Jomboy's "Umpires eject the Blue Jays for nothing, a breakdown", and I honestly have nothing to add to it other than to say that while I acknowledge that it is enormously plausible that Yimi Garcia might very well choose to bury one in Josh Donaldson's ribs, and indeed it is possible that on some spiritual or emotional level he is doing so even as we speak (perhaps it is a perpetual state), I honestly do not think that he was trying to hit him in a tie game in the sixth inning, even if Giancarlo Stanton had just hit a(n absurd Yankee Stadium) three-run home run right before. I just don't see, and neither did Josh Donaldson, as he revealed in his comments after the game. But the umpires sure did! And that was that. The real shame here, I think, is to have blown a game made winnable by the best start we've seen from the totally likeable Yusei Kikuchi, who I totally like.

KS   

2022 Game Thirty: Guardians 4, Blue Jays 3

 

Jose Ramirez (seen here tripling)
is at least as good as you know he is
and possibly better

Alek Manoah's enormously enthusiastic and quite compelling mother (and his comparatively low-key grandmother [lol she is still pretty into it though]) was (were) on hand to watch their large adult (grand)son pitch a fine game without his best stuff on this Mother's Day Sunday afternoon. A few pitches really, really got away from him (juuuuust a bit outside, haha, Ben Wagner was heard to remark), and he mentioned after the game that he was having a hard time getting a grip on the balls all day, wondering if they had been sufficiently rubbed up/down, and even speculating openly that they hadn't been! It is not my place to say. Manoah pitched well enough to win, though, and were it not for the two-run Cleveland eighth, everything would have been cool. Alas that it was not. And so ends a disappointing trip to Cleveland, though it was very pleasant to see Teoscar Hernandez back in the clean-up spot (knocked in two with a single in the first! sure would have been nice to get more out of a bases-loaded-nobody-out inning though!).

So too ends this bananas stretch of thirty games in thirty-one days, plainly the toughest part of the Blue Jays' whole schedule this year. FanGraphs noted as recently as "the last time I went" that the Blue Jays' first thirty games saw them play the toughest competition of any MLB team so far (and by kind of a lot), and although this week against New York and Tampa Bay, the two teams that are all of a sudden ahead of them now, probably won't be a whole lot better, I do think this thirty-game point is a worthwhile one at which to sort of low-key take stock. Heading into all of this, a sensible line that one encountered from the most sensible of sensible observers was that if the Blue Jays could come out of the first thirty games at or slightly above .500, that would be a pretty good spot. And so that they sit at a 17-13 record, good for a .567 that projects to a ninety-two-win season (and a playoff spot), despite having a run differential of minus ten based largely on how they have scored scarcely more runs than Baltimore, is actually really great, maybe? And you've got to think they're going to start hitting more, right? Bo Bichette is turning it around, isn't he? Vladdy is due to go on a tear, probably? And hey Téo is back! And Springer has been great! And Santiago Espinal is a top-twenty-five player by fWAR so far this year! Alejandro Kirk is getting on at a good clip! Man we've just gotta start hitting though. 

KS

2022 Games Twenty-Eight and Twenty-Nine (Double Header!): Blue Jays 8, Guardians 3 (Game One), Guardians 8, Blue Jays 2 (Game Two)

 

deal. in'. 

Well, it finally happened: Kevin Gausman walked a guy. We knew it had to happen eventually, I guess, and probably sometime in May. Fortunately, from a face-saving perspective, it came in the overall context of six-hit, one-run start wherein he pitched into the seventh, so maybe he will not be especially haunted by it. The best part is that it came against Franmil Reyes, who has only walked four times this season, and who actually strikes out something like forty-four-percent of the time (that's a lot). Baseball's weird! Also weird: the extent to which Raimel Tapia came through, knocking in three runs on the day, much like George Springer (that's less weird). Alejandro Kirk, DHing the firs half of the double-header, picked up three hits, each one a delight. Thornton and Merryweather (two innings!) took it the rest of the way and everything was lovely.

Until . . .

shoot.

I don't know how much difference it made in terms of run expectancy (I could easily check, and yet), but when the Blue Jays ran into like four outs fairly early on in the second game of the double header, its effects (indeed its affects) on feelings expectancy were profound: well before things were actually out of reach, this game just felt like one that was not going to happen. And then it didn't! I'm actually a little surprised to see from the box score that the Blue Jays had four hits (how the heck did they hit four). Young and long Triston McKenzie, friend and rival to Bo Bichette since they were both like nine years old, pitched a better game than Shane Beiber had earlier in the day, that's for sure.

Alek Manoah on the mound Sunday going for the series split, which would be fine, unlike a three-one series loss, which would actually be a real pain! We're a little behind both the Yankees and Rays right now. I don't like it as much.

KS 

2022 Game Twenty-Seven: Guardians 6, Blue Jays 5

 

turnin' it

A rainy, cold, fairly miserable night, by the end of it, and José Berríos did not have his best stuff, and yet there were certainly things to enjoy, like for instance Vladdy's utter rocket to left in the top of the first inning; later, the first home run of Alejandro Kirk's season; and the first home run of Steven Kwan's career. All nice things! Also it is cheering to see Bo Bichette go three-for-five with a couple runs scored, which is much, much more like it. I will note too that both Casey Lawrence and Trevor Richards pitched well in relief. But a long night (though only four-and-two-thirds innings) for Berríos, and seemingly for pretty much everyone, actually, all bundled up against the wind and the cold and the rain. How could you even keep score without getting your scorekeeping book all soaked? Frankly you couldn't. There's just no way. 

KS

2022 Game Twenty-Six: Blue Jays 2, Yankee 1

oh good Vladdy scooped it oh good

Even if Matt Chapman never really hit at all, there would still be two or three times every game that you felt really, really glad he was your third baseman, hoovering everything up over there and making absurd throws without ever stopping to set his feet. There is a great deal to be enjoyed in that. But also last night a homer! In a tight game! And why, one might reasonably ask, was the game itself tight? Because of the effortless pitching of Yusei Kikuchi, I would reply light-heartedly, because holy hell that guy has to work hard out there for everything, doesn't he? Like he is a lefty who can throw it a million miles an hour, that is his gift, and you might think that would be enough, but no, every inning, every batter, seemingly every pitch is a genuine battle for that guy, and he is so open and demonstrative (though not in a showy way, if that makes sense? like it never feels like a performance) that you cannot help but feel for him every moment he comes up short and share in his joy when things go, not even great, but even just okay. He is the anti-Hyun-Jin Ryu, in a sense, in that although Ryu is all smiles and chuckles in the dugout, when he is actually on the mound you couldn't tell from his aspect whether he'd just given up a three-run homer or struck out the side. Yusei Kikuchi, on the other hand, you could just watch at an isolated shot of his face all game and pretty much call the action, pitch by pitch ("fastball missed up and away I bet," one would be heard to remark [not infrequently {no diss though}]). I am an optimistic person by nature, I think, and so you can place no import at all on my pregame couch-remark that I thought tonight was maybe going to be the night Yusei Kikuchi really put it all together (such as it is) and have a really nice game, but he really really did: a run on three hits and a walk, seven strikeouts, in six innings? Against this lineup? In this economy? You'd take that every time. Phelps, Mayza, and Yimi Garcia were really nice in relief taken together as a whole (Phelps walked a pair and threw I think seven straight balls for a minute there), and Vladdy's slick game-ending scoop to save Matt Chapman's throw and indeed the game with the bases loaded in the ninth really bailed Jordan Romano out. I have not yet mentioned that the Blue Jays other run, scored all the way back in the third, was Vladdy knocking in Bo Bichette's double, but that is indeed how it went down, and I think Dante Bichette is maybe right that they have fixed whatever the specific problem was with Bo's swing, because he was really good all series. 

What a difference to end this series, and this homestand, with a win. It would have been a real drag to have been swept at home by the Yankees, but now that you can frame the last six games as having split with Houston and New York, that honestly doesn't sound too bad at all, does it? Only the Yankees have a better record than the Blue Jays in all of the American League, and we're off to Cleveland next for four, which should go pretty well, right? Then Yankee Stadium and Tampa Bay for a while after that so let's win like no fewer than three in Cleveland how about.

KS  

2022 Game Twenty-Five: Yankees 9, Blue Jays 1

 

well fine

"If I were a blue jays fans," internet baseball presence Jomboy twitter-noted of tonight's game (all quotes "sic," let us be faithful to the spirt of that platform and the utterances it engenders),  "I’d be pretty upset that two blown calls went against the jays and led to the Yankees scoring a lot of run in a game that was once close. If I were a blue jays fan, that is." I appreciate the sentiment, Jomboy, thank you, as the Blue Jays were indeed on the wrong end of some nonsense (Vladdy tagging a dude in a rundown only for the dude to be called safe only to be seen later watching the play on a tablet in the dugout and all of them chuckling about how tagged he had been -- not super cool). But they also only scored one run all night. I would like to say and what a run, about it, though as Alejandro Kirk was just wheeling, look at this:

It is important to note, I think how much this ruled at the time: a scoreless game in the bottom of the fifth, Kirk doubles, then flies home to beat the throw on a Bo Bichette single. That's all great! But it got squashed pretty quick. 

The silver lining to the game came, oddly enough, on an Aaron Judge homerun, or, more specifically, as Blue Jays fan Mike Lanzillotta picked up the ball (in the second deck; Judge really hammered it) and passed it to young Yankees fan Derek Rodriguez (age 9, literally named after Jeter), who was completely overwhelmed by the moment. Video of their exchange very much made the rounds, and led to a nice meeting the next day between all the concerned parties (except Alek Manoah, I guess, but that's fine).

Aaron Judge signed the baseball and gave young Derek his batting gloves (I feel like that part would have been especially amazing to me at age nine, even more than the ball for some reason, so I love that move), and the Blue Jays got everybody great seats for the next game, as you would expect. Judge made a big deal about centering Mike Lanzillotta's gesture, which seemed very nice to do. I also saw that, aside from what Judge did for the little guy, and what the Blue Jays organization did for everybody, George Springer gave Lanzillotta a signed jersey, and Lanzillotta was psyched about it.

So, before this game, the Blue Jays hadn't lost back-to-back so far this season, nor had they dropped a series, and they've done both of those things now (it's fine, these were things that were going to happen), but it's hard to say that it was not a good night of baseball overall.

KS
 

2022 Game Twenty-Four: Yankees 3, Blue Jays 2

 

me too, Raimel Tapia; me too

You can't say we didn't have our chances; you also can't say we didn't hit into like a million double plays. Looking at the box score I see now that it was "only" three, but that really is a lot, fully one third of your innings feeling like something was totally going to happen (oh something happened alright). Ross Stripling's two runs on six hits through four innings is really not bad at all against this Yankees lineup, though it does sting a little that those two runs came on a Gleyber Torres home run (it's like, but why). By the time Yimi Garcia got touched up for the winning run in the ninth, it did not even come as a blow, really -- it felt like it just wasn't going to happen tonight batswise, and it was just a matter of time. This sounds perhaps like an awfully dire impression to have of a one-run game against the best team in the league, coming in on a nine-game win-streak, but I note that I wasn't actually sad about it, just low-key resigned after that third double play, like "okay, it's gonna be one of these. Manoah tomorrow, though." That's what it was like. 

KS

2022 Game Twenty-Three: Blue Jays 3, Astros 2

 

show them where you hit it, Bo

Kevin Gausman cruised once again, and with regard to the outcomes most clearly understood to be within a pitcher's defense-independent control (BB, HR), Kevin Gausman is cruising at historic levels, joining Cy Young (1906) as the only pitchers in "the World Series era" (this is to say 1903 to present) to get this many starts into the season allowing literally zero of either of those (all-too-true) outcomes. Looking good, Gaus! When the Astros finally did touch him for a run in the top of the sixth, the Blue Jays responded quite awesomely in the home half with a Bo Bichette home run just over the wall in right to break the Framber Valdez no-hitter and take the tiny lead. The Astros were good for one more in the seventh, but so too the Blue Jays, with Santiago Espinal singling Matt Chapman home ahead of Yordan Alvarez's actually pretty okay throw to the plate (it would have taken a great throw to beat him). A one-hit Mayza eighth was followed by a one-hit Romano ninth, saved only by a diving one-out grab by George Springer in right on a deep Alex Bregman flyball that I thought was a double the second it left the bat. It wasn't though! Now that the Blue Jays have taken two of three from the Astros in consecutive weekends, I am of the admittedly idiosyncratic view that that should count as the ALCS and we should be all set, but failing broad recognition of this I will content myself (I mean I sure hope) with the Yankees in for three. No Gerrit Cole this time through, which is too bad from the perspective of Vladdy homers but on the whole a positive. Let's who we've got throwing . . . looks like we're going Stripling, Manoah, Kikuchi. I guess we'll see!

KS 

2022 Game Twenty-Two: Blue Jays 2, Astros 1

Honestly not sure if this is the first one or the second

Although the Blue Jays' run differential -- winning, as they are, all these one-run games -- is really quite meagre (standing as it does presently at "zero"), their fun differential is anything but, right baseball fans? The Blue Jays only managed six hits against the burly and compelling Luis Garcia, whose rock-a-bye-baby windup is legitimately soothing in its cadence, but two of them were George Springer home runs, and that's all that we needed, as it happened, because José Berríos (and Tim Mayza, and Adam Cimber, and Jordan Romano) pitched awesome. Vladdy had a tough day at the plate, an oh-for-four with some really tough (and frankly incorrect) calls on breaking balls off the plate away, and it was understandable that he lost his temper about it late in the game -- he did not lose it so thoroughly that he got tossed, but just enough so that Charlie Montoyo rightly perceived that in order to save Vladdy from a tossing, he himself would have to go out and get tossed as concisely and efficiently as possible; Charlie Montoyo, it must be said, "understood the assignment." It was nice to see Bo Bichette get two hits (and a stolen base, too) after what had to be a disappointing oh-for-five on his own "Bo Flow" Bobblehead day ("real" hair and an uncanny likeness; honestly one of the best bobbleheads I have ever seen).  Lourdes Gurriel Jr. had the only other Blue Jays hits, I am noticing only now as I scan the box score. Also I am reminded that the useful Bradley Zimmer made one really nice grab in centre (Springer was DHing), and came very close to another, though the ball was knocked lose from his glove from the tremendous impact of his cool dive. So it goes.

April ends, then, with the Blue Jays at a lovely 14-8, for a winning percentage (perthousandth I guess) of .636, which would, over a full 162 games, come out to a 103-win season, the best in team history by kind of a lot. I say let's go for it! An on-screen graphic (is there any other kind?) the other day showed that the Blue Jays' start this season is tied for the third-best in team history, behind only the hot starts of 1992 and 2009. Pat Tabler spoke for us all when he was like, "1992, that was a great team that got out to a great start and just kept rolling all the way to the World Series; I'm not sure I remember 2009." Which is instructive! Because starts are fleeting. Nevertheless, one cannot help but be buoyed and cheered by how things have gone so far in the aggregate (hey look at all these awesome one-run wins!) if not in every last particular (it sure would be great for Bo to start ripping those fastballs into the seats again! and I would like for Teoscar Hernandez to play! also I am worried about Hyun-Jin Ryu's viability!). The Blue Jays, who have yet to lose two games in a row, and have also yet to lose a series, have Kevin Gausman on the mound today, so our chances to keep rolling in both of those respects seems pretty good (so long as the splitter splits; so long; as; it splits . . .).

Let's go,

KS

2022 Game Twenty-One: Astros 11, Blue Jays 7

Vladdy: gets ahold of one

My favourite moment in the Blue Jays' Friday-night loss, aside from the obvious (Vladimir Guerrero's three-run, 446-foot home run; Matt Chapman hitting one off the facing of the fifth deck; being present near the unfolding mystery of Yusei Kikuchi; etc), definitely came in the bottom of the ninth, when Dusty Baker responded to Héctor Neris'/Martín Maldonado's decision to throw a 2-0 breaking ball with a four-run lead and a runner on first (who had just walked): Dusty took off his cap, looked down, and slowly rubbed his head, a head that contains so much baseball. There are for sure worse things you can do in a baseball game than throw a 2-0 breaking ball with four-run lead and a runner on first (who had just walked), but to throw a 2-0 breaking ball with four-run lead and a runner on first (who had just walked) is not the right thing to do, and Dusty, at seventy-two years old, seemed in that moment to have felt all at once the cumulative weight of every time in his long baseball life that someone chose to throw a 2-0 breaking ball with four-run lead and a runner on first (who had just walked). And it was a lot. That the pitch missed is not the point; nor that Neris battled back from the 3-0 count and struck Zack Collins out and ended the game soon thereafter. Dusty Baker has seen too many things, everybody; please do not make Dusty Baker see any more things, everybody. 

KS