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