2022 Game Ninety-Six: Blue Jays 8, Red Sox 4

 

may I clear?

As much as we all enjoyed Raimel Tapia's inside-the-park grand slam Friday night (exceedingly, yes, thank you), how about his bases-loaded triple Sunday afternoon? I mean, come on! Given Ross Stripling's fine outing despite the swelter, and the able relief that followed, the Blue Jays didn't need much more than that, but got four hits from Vladdy, a couple doubles from Matt Chapman, and the great gift of three Red Sox errors -- and honestly it seems strange to look at the box score and see that it was only three, as I do not recall a major league team playing worse defense, probably not in a single game, but certainly not over the course of a three-game series (at home, too [yikes]). Heading into this series, it occurred to me that a Blue Jays sweep might more or less finish off the Red Sox, if such a thing is possible with sixty-five-or-so games to go, but it actually kind of can, if it shows the Boston front office that this is not the year to trade prospects for pieces to help them try to sneak in. The Red Sox are only three games behind Seattle for the final spot, but they're two-and-eight in their last ten and are just getting creamed (they did not fare much better than this against the Yankees right before the break). And where do the Blue Jays sit after (or indeed amidst) this pretty choice six game winning streak? Very much atop the wild card ranks, a tidy game-and-a-half ahead of the Rays, and four-and-a-half-games clear of the teams "on the outside looking in" (Boston, Cleveland, and, half a game behind both, the Baltimore Orioles). You get to a point (and we are there now I think) where it's like, it would be weird if we didn't trade for Juan Soto and arguably also Luis Castillo and a lights-out reliever in exchange for nobody on our major-league roster. If not now: when. 

KS