2022 Game Forty-Nine: Blue Jays 7, White Sox 3

 

freaky

I admit to complete ignorance with regard to young White Sox right-hander Michael Kopech, but I will take the great Dan Shulman (and the affable Pat Tabler) at their word when they tell me that Kopech entered last night's game having allowed literally zero home runs so far this season, and only five earned runs of any kind at all. And so imagine my surprise when Santiago Espinal led off the home-half of the first with a home run (A.J. Pollock had led off the game proper with a homer off of Hyun-Jin Ryu; I don't think I have ever seen dual lead-off home runs before), and apparently-slugging-catcher Danny Jansen added a three-run shot to chase Kopech in the third. Alas that Hyun-Jin Ryu, who did not pitch all that poorly, left the game after four with more of the general left-arm trouble (call it elbow tightness, call it forearm inflammation, just call me when it stops making our big pal Hyun-Jin spike curves and miss off the plate with his change, please and thank you [get well soon]). But Ross Stripling, who has really embraced his weird and somewhat old-fashioned rôle out of the pen (something between a "swing man" and an early-1970s "fire man"), did a great job, as did David Phelps (maybe he developed "a closer mentality" on Sunday?), and for whatever reason my personal fav, Yimi Garcia (go Yimi; go, Yimi). Vladdy added a true rocket of a two-run homer off the batter's eye in the eighth to put the Blue Jays out in front by a margin that felt a lot safer than the two-run lead they had nursed since the fourth (I did not feel good about that two-run lead at all; like at no point). That makes it seven in a row, which is very close to eight in a row, and whenever you win eight in a row, I feel like that's a really big deal, because you've just won like five percent of your whole season in a row -- I know that ten games is really when everybody starts to pay attention to a team's winning streak, like on a league-wide basis, but I really do think the eight-game streak is one to attend to, given the "base-162" nature of the baseball season, if see what I am incorrectly saying about math(s). Alek Manoah on the hill this afternoon looking for a getaway-day sweep! If I feel this psyched about it (and I assure you I am), imagine how Alek Manoah feels; there is a guy who can get psyched. 

KS