2022 Game One-Hundred-Twenty-Six: Angels 8, Blue Jays 3

 

I love that they are friends

I was having a pretty tough day, and so welcomed the presence of three-hours of Blue Jays baseball in the middle of it as a blessing regardless of the outcome; just the fact of it, and Dan Shulman and Buck Martinez telling me about it, was a significant comfort. And so I can't honestly say that I was all that bummed at the 8-3 loss and the series sweep, even though both are plainly a problem. The Rays and Mariners both won yesterday, so the Blue Jays trail the first by a game and a half, the second by a game; Baltimore's loss means there's still a game and a half between the Blue Jays and the O's. That's not great, certainly, but the somewhat lowly Cubs in next gives us a chance to straighten things out, maybe? It's weird to come back from a six-and-one road trip through Yankee Stadium and Fenway to get swept at home by the Angels, I grant you, it's just weird, but I just feel like it's all still ahead of us, with lots of games left against probably the only team that has a real shot at catching us (Baltimore), and if you can't half of those or so, then I guess you don't get to be a playoff team, right? It all seems fair and fine to me. Perhaps the return of Bradley Zimmer -- reclaimed from the Phillies off of waivers this afternoon -- will provide "the spark" (I am being light-hearted but also welcome him).  

KS

2022 Game One-Hundred-Twenty-Five: Angels 2, Blue Jays 0

 

the fellas

also the fellas

The pregame ceremony honouring the thirtieth anniversary of the 1992 World Series Champion Toronto Blue Jays really couldn't have been better, nor could the pitchers' duel between Alek Manoah and Shohei Ohtani that followed, except for how the Blue Jays lost it 2-0. Both Manoah and Ohtani pitched beautifully, seven innings each, but Ohtani was just a little bit better, and the Blue Jays managed but two hits (a Springer single, a Vladdy double [Bo walked) all day. And so just like that, we've lost the series. At home. Against the Angels. Who are like twenty games below .500. This . . . this is no good, man. At least the other teams "in the hunt" have largely had the decency to lose as well, excepting the increasingly worrying Baltimore Orioles, who are lurking.

KS

2022 Game One-Hundred-Twenty-Four: Angels 12, Blue Jays 0

 

and that is very much a triple for Shohei Ohtani

On a human level, I appreciate that not getting into town until nearly four in the morning makes it tough to work the next day, or oven the next evening, and cannot even mind this seemingly unlikely outcome all that much. And even the magnitude of this loss, the twelve-to-nothingness of it, really doesn't bother me either, as really the Angels might as well have scored a hundred, right? If you don't score any at all, who cares? Of course, one has no desire to see one's bullpen torched to open a homestand, but we were spared that with three innings of Yusei Kikuchi and one of Whit Merrifield (that's surprising!) in relief of Mitch White's troubled five innings. A dud, but arguably a fairly harmless one? On the other hand, the 2021 Toronto Blue Jays finished with ninety-one wins and missed the playoffs by a single game. Who's to say!

KS 

2022 Game One-Hundred-Twenty-Three: Blue Jays 6, Red Sox 5 (F/10)

 

I can appreciate where Red Sox pitcher John Schreiber
is coming from, but in fact Cavan Biggio was safe

When Bo's throwing error extended the fifth inning and eventually came around to tie the game at five, I figured two-out-of-three in Boston (and a five-and-two road trip) would be fine, and decided not to worry about it. So I was relatively carefree when the home half of the ninth opened with a Reese McGuire (remember him?) triple that Téo probably should have cut off before it got to the wall. But, bizarrely, the Red Sox did not score: Adam Cimber struck out Bobby Dalbec, hit Jarren Duran (after getting him to two strikes!), and struck out Tommy Pham before Tim Mayza came in and, on the first pitch, got the troublesome Rafael Devers to ground out to Vladdy, who booted it, but directly to Cavan Biggio, so it all worked out. A leadoff triple that doesn't score in a tie-game in the eighth? Wild! And yet that turned out to be nothing, as Jordan Romano worked his way into, and then out of, a bases-loaded, nobody-out jam in the bottom of the ninth (the FanGraphs win probability [fan]graph had the Red Sox at 93.8% at that point, if I am remember that right). It's really not that complicated, when you see it done: first you strike out Francy Cordero, and then you get Kiki Hernandez to rip one pretty much directly to Matt Chapman, who'll step on the bag at third for out number two and then fire it across to Vladdy to end the inning. If Cavan Biggio can slide in scarcely home on a "contact" play in the top of the tenth, and you can retire the Red Sox in order from there, so much the better! 

And so the Blue Jays return home to face the Angels having won six of seven on their trip to Yankee Stadium and Fenway, which turns out to have been a super important thing to do, as everybody around them is winning all of a sudden, too (the Rays have won six in a row, which is particularly unnerving). After back-to-back ten-inning games, we're going to need some real innings from Mitch White tonight, as aside from Yimi, the bullpen is pretty much cooked.

KS

2022 Game One-Hundred-Twenty-Two: Blue Jays 3, Red Sox 2 (F/10)

 

I have my qualms with Fenway . . .

. . . but it photographs well

George Springer's tenth-inning double to win it, José Berríos' six strong innings (a two-run homer in the bottom of the first the only blemish), and the fine work of five bullpen arms in relief (Yimi, Mayza [a little rough, but he'll get there], Bass, Cimber, and Romano) were all praiseworthy and quite frankly also just a whole lot of fun, but it was Matt Chapman's diving stop and backhanded flip to start a 5-6-3 double play to end the third that had my brother-in-law simultaneously texting (simultexting?), because man, that was wild. At times one wonders, does one not, about how Matt Chapman might fare at shortstop? I will say little in favour of the shift (æsthetically; I do not doubt it from a competitive standpoint), but it does give us a chance to see what that might be like, and maybe it would rule? I like Bo, though. This is not about Bo. 

KS

2022 Game One-Hundred-Twenty-One: Blue Jays 9, Red Sox 3

 

the ready position

So rich a text was the Blue Jays two-out, eight-run rally in the third that I am not even sure George Springer's bases-loaded triple was even my favourite part of it (it might have been, though). With quick ground outs from both Springer and Vladdy, it looked like the Blue Jays were going to waste JBJ's leadoff double, until they extremely did not: Gurriel double, Kirk walk, Téo single, Bo single (pitching change), Biggio single, JBJ walk (bat-around inning!), Springer triple. It is a little sad that Vladdy grounded out twice in the same inning, but there were more positives than negatives here. Stripling made another very fine six-inning start, and both Phelps and Richards pitched ably in relief, which is good, because poor Yusei Kikuchi, in his second appearance out of the pen, very much did not. But he may yet! I have not ruled it out! 

KS  

2022 Game One-Hundred-Twenty: Yankees 4, Blue Jays 2

 

Adam Cimber I am sorry but this is just a great photo

It wasn't even his day to start (that was Saturday, when Kirk chased him with a two-RBI double to cap a four-run fifth [you might remember it {cuz it ruled}]), but Gerrit Cole did his best to make everything about him on Sunday afternoon when he was the first and indeed only player to hit the field in anger after Alek Manoah's two-seamer got away from him on the "arm-side" (as it does) and plunk Aaron Judge in the elbow pad. Vladdy stood along the first base line making a two-handed wavy-wavy motion with a pleading look on his face as the fussy Cole fussed about; Judge and Manoah, two deeply enormous men, settled the matter with amiable broishness, a little "I got you," that sort of thing, everything was good. Judge, no less than Vladdy, had wanted Cole to cool it, and in time he did, but not before having been utterly ridiculous in the kind of "fake tough guy" way that led Manoah to fairly summarize the situation thus (as transcribed by ideal beat reporter Kaitlyn McGrath): "I’m not trying to do that, and I think (Judge) understood that. I think if Gerrit wants to do something, he can walk past the Audi sign next time.” (You will note, reader, that the Audi sign is close to the first base line, but not that close.) A brief moment of great silliness in an otherwise pretty good game: Manoah did not have his best stuff, but even without it, allowed just two runs (one earned) on four hits (two walks) in his six innings, and honestly neither of those runs really should have happened: the first came on just a poor decision on Lourdes Gurriel Jr.'s part to even attempt a throw to third base (never mind that the throw itself was off the mark), and the second on a hot shot to short that took a funny bounce but had Bo even kept the ball in front of him, there's no real problem. But that's how good Manoah is even when he's struggling, which is honestly pretty wild. The Blue Jays' big chance came in a really interesting seventh inning, which, after all manner of pinch hitters and pitching changes and a bases-loaded walk to Blue Jays legend JBJ, ended with Vladdy unable to bring anyone home with the bases loaded and two away. So it goes! Cimber gave up a two-run shot to Benintendi in the home half of that very same inning, and that was pretty much that. Oh, yes, also: one of the weirdest home runs you'll ever see came in the third, when Whit Merrifield's fly ball to pretty much straightaway centre bounced not once, but twice off the top of the wall before settling on the far side. Dan Shulman had never seen it happen; nor had Pat Tabler; nor had I; and if you add us all up that is a lot of years of seeing things. Wild!

And so while, in the moment, it felt like a bit of a drag not to complete the four-game sweep in Yankee Stadium (you only get so many! [literally two: 2003, 2021]), it is hard not to be satisfied with three-out-of-four. It would have been a whole lot cooler to be just six games back of the division lead at the end of the weekend, but instead we are eight, which honestly felt impossible even just a couple of weeks ago, so no problem there, really. A quick glance at the Wild Card standings (Pat Tabler says he doesn't look, and can't look, because it makes him too anxious, and I get it) reveals a three-way tie, in which the Rays, Blue Jays, and Mariners are all ten games above .500, and all two-and-a-half in front of both Minnesota and Baltimore (the White Sox are just a game behind those two, but weirdly feel less threatening even though I figured they'd win the Central this year [but what do I know {obviously!}]). I was honestly surprised (and weirdly a little aggrieved?) to see that the Blue Jays don't actually play tonight, and do not start their series in Fenway until Tuesday, but I will definitely have my eyes on the out of town scores tonight. I will probably also go for a bike right and watch a Star Trek or something too, though; it won't be my whole night, except in the part of my heart that is, like, my baseball heart.

KS  

2022 Game One-Hundred-Nineteen: Blue Jays 5, Yankees 2

 

if you look closely you can see both Raimel Tapia
and JBJ in this pic also [they both scored {Vladdy didn't quite}]

Let's hear it once again for trade-deadline-pickup Mitch White, who turned in another really nice outing, this time in front of his mom and dad, who seemed worried and nice. There was certainly lots of activity on the basepaths across his four innings of work, but White kept wriggling off the hook, and got touched for just the one run against a Yankees team that is certainly struggling tremendously (you should hear the way Aaron Hicks is getting booed; it is almost upsetting), but still has a lot of big bats. It took five relievers to go the rest of the way, but Cimber to Phelps to Bass to Pop to Yimi went as well as anyone could reasonably hope or expect, with Gleybor Torres' solo shot off of Zach Pop the only damage. I was a little concerned and honestly confused when Yimi didn't come out to pitch the eighth, until I remembered Romano had pitched the night before and it dawned on me that oh wait Yimi is going to close today at which point I was super psyched at this awesome turn of events. Another awesome turn of events, I am sure we can all agree, was the Blue Jay's four-run fifth, which began inauspiciously enough (Matt Chapman called out on strikes), but really took off from there: an Espinal double, a Jansen walk, a two-RBI double from Blue Jays legend Jackie Bradly Jr., and infield singles from known speedsters Raimel Tapia and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (they had to review Vladdy's!) before Alejandro Kirk's two-RBI double that plated JBJ and Raimel and saw Vladdy tagged out at home like maybe a second after Tapia scored; Vladdy nearly caught up to Tapia; it was so great (the high-fives that awaited Vladdy in the dugout were every bit as enthusiastic as if he'd have scored; everybody loved it). Kirk's double knocked putative Yankees ace Gerrit Cole (I get much more worried about Nestor Cortes these days) out of the game and into a really ugly state of childish pouting and pounding. I feel like I have had just about enough of Gerrit Cole, and I say this even though the Blue Jays have done very well against him this season. It is nevertheless unpleasant. Anyway: toss Matt Chapman's ninth-inning solo home run on top of all of this, and you've got quite a Saturday at Yankee Stadium. Seven games back in the division! Sounds like a lot but it used to be like seventeen! Top Wild Card spot! But that'll all be a mess until like the last day of the season! Even so though! Even! So though!

KS

2022 Game One-Hundred-Eighteen: Blue Jays 4, Yankees 0

 

JBJ is fitting right in

Juggernaut status: extremely confirmed is how I would characterize the lessons learned from Friday's 4-0 win over the Yankees, a game marred only by its broadcast on Apple TV+ that thus deprived us of the dulcet tones of Dan Shulman and also the beloved cartoon pelican ones (tones, I mean) of Buck Martinez. But those failings aside, what a performance: seven innings of no-run, four-hit/one-walk baseball from Kevin Gausman, clean innings of relief for both Yimi and Romano, Téo's two-run shot, Alejandro Kirk's three-for-four . . . I don't want to overstate this but it seems an absolute unflinching certainty that the Blue Jays will chase down the Yankees for the AL East lead and probably also secure the top seed overall by passing Houston as well. At this point it is just really hard to see things playing out any other way. 

KS  

2022 Game One-Hundred-Seventh: Blue Jays 9, Yankees 2

 

Vladdy went first to third on a single and came in H O T

Are we possibly a juggernaut now? It might be too soon to declare it, but consider the evidence: José Berríos allowed just two runs over six-and-two-thirds, at which point he was ably relieved by Anthony Bass, elite eighth-inning setup man Yusei Kikuchi, and finally Jordon Romano (ten pitches, nine strikes). And the boys truly bopped: a five-for-five night for George Springer, a three-run homer (the narrowest right-field squeaker, the Yankee Stadiumest home run possible) from Vladdy, and just all kind of great stuff (doubles from Chapman, Téo, and Alejandro Kirk) up and down the lineup. What a blast! The Blue Jays head into the weekend, now, a game behind Seattle for the top WC spot, and a game-and-a-half ahead of the Twins, the non-playoff team (at present) with the best record (at present). It goes without saying that this win draws us one game nearer to the Yankees, who sit but nine games ahead of the Blue Jays with forty-five left to play. You never know! Here's Alykhan Khamisa Ravjiani's picture of Vladdy signing a baby!

KS

2022 Game One-Hundred-Sixteen: Blue Jays 6, Orioles 1

safe at home, to the delight of (nearly) all

Well, we sure needed that one! More specifically, we sure needed that seventh inning: when the returning Ross Stripling's perfect game ended after six-and-a-third on a single by the ever-nifty Cedric Mullins, things were actually looking a little ticklish all of a sudden, but a strong bare-handed play by Bo Bichette and an utterly nails performance from Yimi Garcia (who is nails) kept things scoreless headed into the home half (of the inning [of the baseball game {go Jays}]). The six-run, bat-around inning that followed contained many delights, as such innings always do, but perhaps chief among them was the 1000th hit (and first pinch hit) of George Springer's career, and, just a bit later, his slide home on a close play to score just behind Bo on a Santiago Espinal double. (Alejandro Kirk's two-RBI double into the corner did a lot of good, too, and I don't want us to overlook that.) Zach Pop's eighth wasn't great, but David Phelps' ninth was, so who could be bothered? Certainly not me, an enthusiastic supporter of a baseball team that did not fall out of a playoff position yesterday! And so on to Yankee Stadium for four games against a team that has struggled at least as mightily (perhaps even mightilier) than the Blue Jays in recent weeks, although they did beat the Rays last night on a walk-off grand slam in extra innings. So I guess we'll just see.

KS  

2022 Game One-Hundred-Fifteen: Orioles 4, Blue Jays 2

 

"oh man(oah)" or "oh (ma)no(ah)", as you like it

On the subject of Vladimir Guerrero's utter "piss missile" (if you will forgive me that vivid coarseness) of a first-inning home run (which you can see here), the ever-ready Nick Ashbourne notes the following: "Coming into tonight 3,721 home runs had been hit in MLB. Just three of them had a launch angle of 15 or lower like that Vladdy laser. 2 of them were inside-the-park HRs. The other went 358 feet. That one was 398 feet. Truly a 1-of-1 blast." Indeed it was! And we were rolling! With Alek Manoah cruising on the bump, too! Sure, it would have been nice to tack on a couple more with the bases loaded and only one out in the third, and it was kind of drag that Matt Chapman grounded into a double play instead, but the way Manoah is dealing out there, it'll be fine, right; it'll be fine, right? Woe that it was not: Manoah got two outs on the first four pitches of the fifth inning, and then on the next three, gave up two solo home runs. I believe they said he had only allowed two home runs in his previous thirty-three innings, or something like that? A couple runs in the sixth and all was blasted: 4-2 Orioles, and it stayed that way, in no small part because the Blue Jays didn't hit it out of the infield after the third. And yet I maintain that this is not rock bottom; rock bottom would be/will be a little later this afternoon, should the Blue Jays drop the "getaway day" game (with the returning Ross Stripling on the mound) to fall a half-game out of the AL Wild Card playoff picture for the first time in what I believe to be months, though I am sure we will hear the exact date that last occurs when next it occurs, which, once again, could be just like three hours from now. On the other hand, we're only a game-and-a-half out of the top spot! So who can say!

KS

2022 Game One-Hundred-Fourteen: Orioles 7, Blue Jays 3

 

it didn't go like we'd hoped

I went to bed hoping that Yusei Kikuchi's fellow 花巻東高等学校/Hanamaki Higashi High School graduate Shohei Ohtani could maybe do him "a solid" by beating the Mariners and thus ensuring the Blue Jays a continued (if tenuous!) hold on the first Wild Card playoff spot, but I awoke to find that that was extremely not to be (in the sense that the Angels kicked it around for four runs in the ninth to make a hash of Ohtani's excellent start, and lost 6-2 ["Angels lose to Mariners in improbably embarrassing fashion" was an actual headline]). A rough night all around, then, as Kikuchi, poor fellow, pitched what could very easily be his last start of the season, what with: his ongoing struggles; the recent acquisition of Mitch White (who has worked out so far); and the imminent return of Ross Stripling. It really is hard to see anything but a mop-up rôle out of the bullpen for Kikuchi from here on out, and who knows? He's a two-pitch guy, for the most part, which sounds bullpenesque to begin with, and maybe he'll find a little more velocity if he's only asked to work an inning or two at a time (not that velocity has really been the problem). Maybe it will work out for him? But with the Blue Jays snugged up super tight against like half the league in these the final weeks of the season (only seven to go!), I can't see him making another start. We haven't a start to spare! A half game behind the Mariners, tied with Tampa Bay, and just a game and a half ahead of the lurking Orioles . . . the Yankees have lost ten of their last twelve, and had the Blue Jays even just played, like, regular over the last week or so, they'd be closing in on the AL East lead, with four games in New York coming up later this week to really put the pressure on. But instead the pressure, the emotional pressure, fell largely on Dan Schulman, who would just start hoping so hard whenever Kikuchi would get an oh-and-two count last night. It is one thing, emotionally, to watch Yusei Kikuchi pitch, and I can almost bear it, but I don't know that I can bear watching Dan Schulman watching Yusei Kikuchi. I think everybody just needs a break.

KS    

2022 Game One-Hundred-Thirteen: Guardians 7, Blue Jays 2

looking fairly lanky out there but I've seen lankier (lanken up, Gausman)

What should have been a true pitcher's duel -- Shane Beiber! Kevin Gausman! -- ended up with Trent Thornton pitching the ninth, which, a fact taken entirely on its own, offers solid evidence that, one way or another, something very much other than a true pitcher's duel had emerged. A tough day for Gausman, but it's really the bats that were the issue all weekend, putting up just four runs against an admittedly strong Cleveland staff, but even so, guys; I mean, four runs; golly. I really would have preferred a series win after that rough road trip (I am sure the Blue Jays feel similarly), but as far as the standings go, the Blue Jays finish the weekend pretty much as they started it: with the third best record in the American League (behind Houston and New York), and holding the top Wild Card spot (half a game ahead of Seattle, a full game ahead of Tampa Bay). There has been a significant clustering or "bunching up" behind Tampa, though, and what we're looking at now is six teams all within three games of each other with just under fifty left to play. USA Today's much-maligned Bob Nightengale (in that when he reports that a deal is about to happen, everyone replies by posting like "[the opposite deal] confirmed") noted the following yesterday:

The American League contenders since the All-Star break:

Houston Astros:16-9

Cleveland Guardians: 15-9 

Baltimore Orioles: 13-9 

Chicago White Sox: 13-10 

Toronto Blue Jays: 11-9 

Seattle Mariners: 11-12 

TB Rays: 9-12 

Minnesota Twins: 8-11 

Boston Red Sox: 8-14

NY Yankees: 8-14

Pretty wild, right? A drag, then, that the next team we see are the still-reasonably-hot Baltimore Orioles, though they did drop two out of three to the Rays over the weekend . . . I see here that they have Kyle Bradish throwing tonight, which could mean a breakout night for the Blue Jays bats? For our part, we've got Yusei Kikuchi on the mound, and you know what, I have decided that he is due, and that's all there is to it: Yusei Kikuchi is due.

KS

2022 Game One-Hundred-Twelve: Blue Jays 2, Guardians 1

 

Téo

Looking back at it now, it seems I may have taken Friday night's loss too hard(ly) when I wondered aloud (electronically aloud [e-loud]) if it may have marked the Blue Jays' last day atop the AL Wild Card standings. As it turns out it was not, as the Mariners' win over the Rangers "coupled with" (ooh my) the Blue Jays very excellent and good 2-1 win over the Guardians puts us right back where we would very much like to be, thanks everybody, great job. Mitch White's day began inauspiciously, getting slightly squeezed en route to throwing seven-straight balls to open the game, before he gave a wry little smile on a generous call for the game's first strike, eight pitches in. I like this Mitch White, and I am pleased that we'll have him for quite a while! Solo home runs from both Matt Chapman and Teoscar Hernandez were really quite rad, as was, once again, the pen: Pop, Cimber, Bass, Yimi, and Jordan Romano for a four-out save (that's one of the best kinds). And so a win on "Victory Vlad" Bobblehead Day, which is a genuine mercy. Oh and also: Newfoundland's young fireballer Jaida Lee threw out the first pitch, with her whole Canada Games baseball team on hand to see it. Which was pretty neat! A solid day at the ballpark all around. Right, Téo?

yes that's true

KS

2022 Game One-Hundred-Eleven: Guardians 8, Blue Jays 0

 

oh no I thought we'd get "home Berrios"

Okay well let's start with the good things, maybe: quick game! Only two-hours, thirty-three minutes, so the crowd of forty-one-thousand-plus was treated to "a brisk affair." Vladdy ripped a double to keep the hit-streak alive! Twenty games! The Blue Jays bullpen looked great, with Pop, Richards, Thornton, Cimber, and Phelps all putting up scoreless innings. And José Berríos picked-off José Ramirez with a nifty move in the first. Alas that he (Berríos, not Ramirez) also got utterly cooked for eight runs in four innings, and the Blue Jays were outhit fourteen-to-three. It was a real drag! The loss, combined with a Seattle win, also knocked the Blue Jays out of the top Wild Card position for the first time in I think a while. A week ago, they were thirteen games over .500! They are . . . fewer games than that now. Will we look back on this fairly dark (and yet brisk: let us not lose sight of this briskness) Friday night as the beginning of the Blue Jays slide out of the AL playoff picture? Or will we totally forget about it because everything actually will be at least fine and possibly even good? I for one intend to find out but I get it if that does not sound like as much fun to everybody else. 

KS 

2022 Game One-Hundred-Ten: Orioles 6, Blue Jays 5

 

on Bo-and-2, even

I felt pretty sure that Bo Bichette's second opposite-field home run of the night -- this one a three-run shot in a four-run sixth -- was going to be enough to put the Orioles away, but Rougned Odor's two-run laser off of the ultra-reliable Yimi Garcia in the bottom of the eighth confirmed my own long-held suspicion that I am, in fact, a fool. Alek Manoah's three runs on eight hits (just one walk) through five, though a little short of his usual standard, was not really the problem. And Anthony Bass had a nice inning in relief. You definitely don't expect to see Cimber and Garcia give up three runs between them in two innings of relief, but it's gonna happen sometimes, I suppose. What a drag! I joined this one late, and so missed the triple-play-that-wasn't (Merrifield was ruled to have smothered the ball, as opposed to having caught it), but tuned in plenty of time to catch the forty-five-minute rain delay fight after the Blue Jays big (half-)inning. The final game of the series was rained out, too, which is fine by me, given how this has been going. The Orioles are the AL East's best team since the break, and although the Blue Jays have been the division's second best in that time, it is pretty clear who has been the greater agent of chaos. Hey, here's something: the Blue Jays' 60-50 record through 110 games this season is exactly the same as their 2021 season to that same point. Weird, right? I have been thinking about how, if the Blue Jays end up at 91 wins (or thereabouts) again this season, they might actually be setting up for a significantly better 2023, in that this year's 90-ish win team (let us hope; let us dream) has been that with down years from both Vladdy and Bo, both of whom I think we can reasonably expect to perform a little better next year, and without a Cy Young season from Robbie Ray, or Marcus Semien's best offensive season from an AL second-baseman ever. If these 2022 Blue Jays, whose only pending losses via free agency are David Phelps (whom we all like) and Ross Stripling (whom we all really like), can add a little more to an already much-improved pen, toss in another starting arm of somewhere near league-average value, and look forward to even slightly better performances from our young bats next year, maybe next year is totally the year? If this sounds like I am already conceding this, our present season, please believe me that I am not, in that I am still of the view that we should totally nab a Wild Card spot. And everything that follows is of course one big merry/horrendous roll of the dice. 

KS

2022 Game One-Hundred-Nine: Orioles 7, Blue Jays 4

 

oh no

If only Yusei Kikuchi were himself aloof about it all, it might feel different for the rest of us, too, but as it stands, the utterly earnest displays of both hope and suffering broad blown before us nearly every time he takes the mound are almost too much to bear. And I just mean emotionally: this is setting aside the grim maths of the five runs Kikuchi gave up on three home runs in the first three innings Monday night. It felt low-key miraculous that Kikuchi made it through five full innings, and the Blue Jays kept it a reasonably close game (home runs from Biggio and Chapman helped), but this one felt like it was over pretty early on (John Schneider choosing the "Trent Thornton to Trevor Richards" bullpen route suggests this feeling was shared). It's fast approaching the point where Kikuchi is only going to be viable as The Long Guy out of the bullpen; maybe we're past that point already? I would wonder about this further but then I would have to bear it. 

KS

2022 Game One-Hundred-Eight: Blue Jays 3, Twins 2 (F/10)

 

One side, Gary.

Got the split! And so unconventionally: in the top of the tenth (extras again! I still don't like them!), vaxxed king Whit Merrifield tagged up on Santiago Espinal's not-that-deep fly ball to Byron Buxton, who has a really good arm, but who had entered the game not long before, and was possibly not fully limbered up? Like just not fully limbered? The throw was very much "on the money" even so, and it took a replay to confirm that Whitt Merrifield was indeed microscopically safe. Emboldened by his previous success tagging up on a ball upon which he maybe shouldn't have (tagged [up {on}]), Merrifield tried it again a batter later as Tim Beckham settled under a Lourdes Gurriel fly ball to really very shallow left indeed. The throw beat him to the plate not by a tonne (Merrifield is as fleet as he is adventurous), but by enough. How fortuitous, then, that Gary Sanchez had totally (and in a sense needlessly) blocked the plate, preventing Merrifield from even having a chance to slide in safely, which is of course against the rules now that baseball has quite rightly decided that it's dangerous and silly to have collisions at the plate (there are those who maintain that baseball should, in this once circumstance, be not just a contact sport but a collision sport, and this is often, in my experience, a take you get from guys who under no circumstance could make it through the warmup at a low-key recreational judo club, for instance, to choose an example of a sport where you go and pretend to fight if you think that sports should be about pretending to fight [my take: some should be; others should not be; guess which kind I think baseball is]). John Schneider mimed the "headphones headphones" motion with extreme prejudice; Rocco Baldelli flipped out when the call was overturned; it was all a great time, honestly. After the game, Merrifield mentioned that he had noticed that this is the way Sanchez always sets up at the plate (illegally), and he decided to force the issue by sliding right into the obstruction, to sort of force the matter as regards the new rules (they are actually not that new I guess, but I am old, and they are newer than me). As one wag noted on the "Literally Us, the Toronto Blue Jays" reddit, Whitt Merrifield does his own research (haha we can laugh about it now but it wasn't super funny before!).

So all of that worked out, in the sense that Jordon Romano nailed down the bottom of the tenth, after having failed to quite nail down the bottom of the ninth, which is really good for Lourdes Gurriel in particular, as he got hung up rounding third and was tagged out in a rundown to brutally end a top of the tenth that could easily have been a bunch of runs instead of just the one. But no matter! Kevin Gausman was once again awesome, and pitched another scoreless six innings (it's been a while now since he has given up a run at all, like two starts plus a bit). Anthony Bass gave us a scoreless seventh, but Yimi and Romano both got dinged for a run each, which is how we got to that tenth inning I mentioned briefly a moment ago. Blue Jays runs were few and far between, but Bo doubled in Téo in the second, Lourdes singled home Biggio in the third, and then Merrifield pretty much stole the game in the tenth. Great fun! And because we won the first and final games of this strangely tense, playoff-seeming set against the Twins, it kind of felt like we won the series? Which I know that we did not? And yet nevertheless.

Off to Baltimore, then, as the Blue Jays tour of my favourite American League ballparks rolls on, for the first of fifteen remaining games against the Orioles. It is something of a pity that the Orioles have been the best team in the AL East since the All-Star break, in that the Blue Jays still have to play them a bunch, but aside from that detail it is a pretty great story. When I looked at the schedule early in the season, these fifteen games against the Orioles late looked super enticing, because not only should the Orioles have been bad, but they should have been so bad that they would have traded all of their remaining good players away at the deadline. They kind of did, actually, even though they are pretty good (that must have been dispiriting -- and it is weird how sparse the crowds at Camden Yards look in the highlights, even on weekend games), and they continue to prosper. Well, I guess we'll just see!

Fifty-four games remain for these 2022 Blue Jays, which seems like an unnotable figure, but it's fully (and completely) a third of the season, and so very much The Home Stretch. Where do we stand? Pretty much where you would hope and expect, I think: with the third-best record in the American League (only the third AL team to reach sixty wins), nine-and-a-half behind the extremely good (and yet fading! since the Gallo trade! think about it!) New York Yankees but in sole possession of the top Wild Card spot, two games ahead of both the Mariners and the Rays in this regard (lurking just two games behind those two: the Guardians and the Orioles). How about the pitching? Well the bullpen looks really good (the loss of Mayza is a drag); Manoah and Gausman look great; Berrios is up and down but has been much better as the season has worn on; some combination of Stripling (who has been great but is now a little hurt), White, and Kikuchi make for a decent back end of the rotation. The pitching should get us there! And the bats? Vladdy is on the longest hit-streak in either league; Gurriel has an even longer streak of reaching safely; Bo is coming around; Kirk just broke a baffling oh-for-twenty or something (he didn't seem to be too concerned about it as he is a steady guy); Chapman has cooled slightly from his homer-every-other-day stretch but that's okay; Springer is going to be nursing that elbow all season but Merrifield is a pretty nifty option when Springer needs rest . . . I just feel really good about the whole situation! If the Blue Jays get even sort of hot again, they could end up winning ninety-plus and coast into the top Wild Card spot; if they play indifferently, they are set up well enough so far that they'll probably still squeak in? Something they may wish to consider, though, is to take dead aim at the New York Yankees and win the whole dang American League East just for funsies.

KS

2022 Game One-Hundred Seven: Twins 7, Blue Jays 3

 

Vladdy will be along shortly to attend to your
accoutrements, Byron Buxton (this really happened) 

I thought that our likeable new friend Mitch White pitched pretty well in his first start since coming over from the Dodgers, and also that he did a particularly nice job in his pregame dugout chat with Hazel (this is important). Bo Bichette's home run was no less pleasing than any of that, and it seems possible that he is getting hot, a little? He is warming? Possibly? Go, Bo? But there was not much fun to be had beyond that, except for the general fun of baseball, which is of course not inconsiderable. Gausman on the hill as we go for the split tomorrow! Kind of feel like we need it!  

KS

2022 Game One-Hundred Six: Twins 6, Blue Jays 5 (F/10)

 

alas that Nick Gordon's broad gesture is accurately reflects
home plate umpire Quinn Wolcott's judgement

José Berríos looked to be in fine form (that's good!) until a four-run fourth (that's bad!) but the Blue Jays came all the way back on home runs from Chapman, Espinal, and Vladdy and a ninth-inning rally capped by a Raimel Tapia RBI-single (that's super good!). But in the top of the tenth, Téo and Bo each left the bases loaded, striking out on just three pitches each. That's bad. What's worse: the Blue Jays kicked it around a little in the bottom of the tenth, and owing to the Manfred Man starting the inning at second base (a contemptible practice but I am not going to get my way on this), Jordan Romano ended up with the deeply improbably pitching line of 0 IP, 0 H, 1 R (0 ER), 0 BB, 1 K. This, too, is bad. And it's a shame, because the comeback was really exciting, and the bullpen (Richards, Pop, Cimber, Phelps, Garcia) did such a great job of holding the line, and making that nifty comeback possible. A great game, consisting of many pleasures, and yet also a true drag just at the end there. 

KS

2022 Game One-Hundred-Five: Blue Jays 9, Twins 3

 

you'd never guess from crowd behind him but this was a road game

a Vladdy of focus

Until the Blue Jays blew it open with an utterly glorious six-run eighth inning (Bo double, Gurriel single, Merrifield single, Biggio single, Springer single, Vladdy three-run missile), this was a really good game, indeed a little too good: Manoah took a perfect game into the bottom of the fourth, but ended that inning down a run after absolutely creaming poor José Miranda with a 94MPH fastball to the hand with the bases loaded. Through those first four, the Blue Jays had plenty of base runners, but left them all aboard; Vladdy fared no better in the bottom of the fifth, grounding out with the bases loaded to the end the inning. It felt like it might be that sort of night, but in the sixth, Téo hit another one of those home runs about which he, personally, had no doubt; Bo doubled; Gurriel knocked him in; and then the Twins kicked it around a little for one more run. The sixth-run eighth, which I may have mentioned previously because of how much it ruled, turned this one into something of "a laugher," which would have been too bad for the biggest Minnesota crowd of the year, except that an awful lot of them were Blue Jays fans, so it's probably fine (I'm not too worried about it). Also fine: that Ben Clemens of FanGraphs agrees with my assessment of the Blue Jays trade deadline acquisitions, characterizing the Blue Jays' front office performance on the day as "Quietly Effective," alongside the work of Houston and Atlanta. I would like to thank Ben Clemens for refuting the views of my foes (I have no foes).

KS

2022 Game One-Hundred-Four: Rays 3, Blue Jays 2

 

what if the Trop . . .

. . . were æsthetic? 

Ah, phooey: a pretty good job by Our Friend Yusei Kikuchi Whom We Support (two runs on three hits and a walk in four innings), a solid effort from the bullpen (just Cimber's one run to go with scoreless work from Thorton, Mayza, Phelps, and Richards), a homer and an RBI double from Téo, but nothing more, and a 3-2 loss. It would have been pretty sweet to get the two-game sweep, and maybe even knock the Rays out of that last playoff spot for a minute or two, but no, there they are, a game behind the Mariners, and three behind the Blue Jays. And so on to Minnesota, where we will be joined by either some or all of our trade deadline acquisitions, for a four-game set you'd sure like to win three of. In true AL Central-leading fashion, the AL Central-leading Twins are a pretty good team having a pretty good year; thus far, they've played their softer schedule three games worse than the Blue Jays have played theirs, but there is lots to like about these Twins, not least of all the wonderful Byron Buxton. And it is always a treat, for me anyway, to watch games played at that lovely ballpark, one of my favourites. Do we miss the pines? Surely; and yet I am not about to complain about a living wall.  

KS

2022 Game One-Hundred-Three: Blue Jays 3, Rays 1

literally Vladdy . . .

. . . literally stealing literal third

Bo singled in Vladdy's double in the top of the first, Danny Jansen blooped in Téo and Tapia in the top of the ninth, and, in between, Kevin Gausman struck out ten whilst walking one and allowing but one slight hit in eight nearly-perfect innings. And that's all you need! It's just that simple! And yet none of these small things, each of them excellent (some indeed bordered on the exquisite), was the story of this day, of this Trade Deadline Day. Our dreams of acquiring either Juan Soto or Shohei Ohtani dashed (. . . for now), the Blue Jays instead made a number of nice little moves, each of them bolstering. I have seen many expressions of disappointment with these acquisitions, but that isn't how I feel about them at all, and not just because I am a merry fellow (I will not deny that is a factor though): there were no moves available to the Blue Jays that would put them in a position to make up a dozen games over the final sixty and overtake the Yankees for the AL East title and a first-round playoff bye (honestly, you could get both Soto and Ohtani and not gain a dozen games [that's a lot!] over sixty [that's not many!] on this year's Yankees), and so what are our actual goals here? They are: i) to get in, as anyone who makes it in has a reasonable chance of advancing, and ii) if at all possible, to be in one of the two higher wild card positions so as to host all three first-round games rather than to be on the road for them (finishing in the final spot of course offers the consolation of those road games occurring in the ballpark of the AL Central winner but we have spoken of this many times previously and I do not wish to belabour the point [think about it though]). The Blue Jays have the third-best record in the American League, and if they can sustain that, their playoff positioning will be just grand. All of the Blue Jays' moves were about low-key consolidating their present position by improving areas of concern, and there is no doubt the Blue Jays got better (I know I don't need to ask you to go look at the FanGraphs rest-of-season ZiPS projections right now if you doubt this . . . but I will). That they did not get as "all-in, everybody-in-the-system-including-Moreno-must-go" about it as talk radiosts (and their online counterparts) would have preferred does not concern me even a little. There has been a good deal of talk about the difference between "a playoff contender" and "a World Series contender," but this is a demonstrably fake distinction -- like, it can be an idea or a feeling that you have, but it is not supported by the things that have happened (in the past [where everything that has happened happened]). The top teams going into the playoffs are somewhat rarely the teams that end up in the World Series (let alone win it). It just doesn't (or at least we can say "hasn't") worked that way (maybe it will start; the Dodgers have spent a number of years now wishing that it would, I bet). The best way to go about winning a World Series is to be in the little tournament they have right before, and the best way to do that is to win around ninety games as many seasons as you can. One can have all manner of preferences about how to go about achieving that aim (that's what makes this all so interesting!), but that is the aim: a bunch of ninety win seasons; that's what teams mean when they say they want "sustainable success" or to be "a perennial contender" or something like that. Or rather, if the aim is winning the World Series (and it is pretty sweet to do, as I recall), the most reliable means of attaining that goal -- especially given the way that happens now, with a slightly bigger little tournament than before -- is to be in that tournament as often as possible, because the results of that tournament are sufficiently random that the winners are likely to be a non-best team way more often than you might expect, because of how baseball is deeply weird, and way more competitive than it usually feels, with tiny little margins (they are tiny) that can flip results (most improbably!) in these short series. 

If I may continue to denounce things I saw, briefly: there has been a good deal of focus on how the Blue Jays are lacking "swing and miss" in their bullpen, and that they need "another left-handed bat" in the lineup. To the first: outs are outs, man, and if you look at the bullpen "K" rate of recent World Series winners (or even not so recent, go to town [to stats town]), you will not find evidence to support the idea that this is an especially important aspect of winning teams (nor will you find evidence to support the oft-repeated idea that pitching is what wins championships: World Series winners are not infrequently at or around league-average). And to the matter of needing another left-handed bat: the thing that you want a left-handed bat is to hit right-handed pitching, right? Is this what you mean, guys I am remembering and minding? So what you actually need is not necessarily a left-handed bat (there are weird splits, there are reverse splits; there are all kinds of splits) but strong performance against right-handed pitching. Well the Blue Jays totally have that already, and also, who are you benching to make that happen? Weirdly, the Blue Jays have actually underperformed against left-handed pitching, particularly soft-tossing left-handed pitching, so far this season. A left-handed bat is unlikely to help that, unless they've got pretty weird splits, which is the thing I am begging everyone to look at. And yet not everyone will, and I am upset about it. I am not saying that everyone who wants to post specific baseball roster complaints on the internet should be required to have either listened to about ten years of FanGraphs Audio or simmed at least twenty seasons of Baseball Mogul or Out of the Park Baseball, but, crucially, I am also not not saying that.

Here's who we got, by the way: Anthony Bass, Zach Pop, a Marlin to be named later, Mitch White, Alex de Jesus, Whit Merrifield 

At the cost of: Jordan Groshans, Nick Frasso, Moises Britto, Samad Taylor, Max Castillo

The most hilarious of these acquisitions, obviously, is Whit Merrifield, a useful player whose poor season to date is marked mainly by how he said he would not get vaccinated as a Kansas City Royal, but might consider it if he got traded to a good team. I applaud Ross Atkins for doing the work of public health and helping encourage the vaccine hesitant.  

       

Anyway, the trade deadline was too much with us, late and soon (getting and spending, we lay waste our powers), and honestly I am glad it is behind us (we have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!). In light of all that, it must have been especially nice for everybody to have a big team party just before in the combined backyards of José Berríos and George Springer (they're neighbours!). And how fortuitous for Blue Jays Floppy Hat Day to have occurred mere days before. 

each look a poem

   

KS

2022 Game One-Hundred-Two: Blue Jays 4, Tigers 1

 

La Makina

We settled in with our Lebanese-food lunch a few moments too late to fully appreciate the all-time great first inning plate appearance from Javy Baez (the broadcast caught us up on it later), but in plenty of time to appreciate the rest of José Berríos' two-hour, nineteen-minute gem. It was a honey! It was both a gem and a honey! A wonderful finish to a wonderful July for Berríos, in fact; the long shadow cast by his poorest outings of the season has obscured how rad(ly) he has pitched for kind of a while now, and the extent to which Manoah, Gausman, and Berríos is a truly first-rate three-man rotation to run out there for an opening-round playoff series (should we be spared). Matt Chapman homered again, Vladdy and Bo each doubled (in that order, which felt weird), and Mayza and Romano took the last two innings despite Berríos only throwing eighty pitches through seven (I get it, though, and I am not a "complete game piner" like so many you encounter these days ["neat when they happen but I don't especially care," is my position]). With only sixty games left to play, somehow, and the Blue Jays now holding the third-best record in the AL, I feel pretty good about everything heading into Tuesday's trade deadline. Ohtani? Soto? Something sensible? Who can say?Come what may, I will again draw comfort from that knowledge that whatever transactions the Blue Jays do or do not make, they will on some level, however minutely, result at least in part from the input of the poet Carson Cistulli. In a very real sense, that is enough for me. 

KS

2022 Game One-Hundred-One: Blue Jays 5, Tigers 3

 

Téo would like you to know that he knows that he got one

Well, nobody listen to me, then, like ever: but one mere game after I suggested it was pretty tough to win when you put together a paltry four hits, here we have the Blue Jays winning 5-3 despite being outhit by the Tigers exactly ten to four. Had Lourdes Gurriel Jr. not reached on a pretty rough error by reliever Derek Law, Téo would not have been in position to hit a truly rad three-run homer in the bottom of the sixth to the great applause of 42 933 (that's a great crowd, even for a perfect Saturday in July), so I am very pleased to say that that is what did in fact occur; Gurriel did get on that way; nobody has to worry. For the second day in a row, the bullpen came through nicely (after a fine Stripling start, this time), and Jordan Romano "notched" his league-leading twenty-third save. Also of note: multiple-inning Yimi, which is my favourite type of Yimi. I get so fired up about Yimi.

I would like to close, if I may, with a couple other really nice photographs from Saturday's game -- the Getty Images page was really hopping for this one.

KS

this one is like stunningly clasic

Vladdy's ever-present joy at being waved home coming around third
has finally been captured in still photography

2022 Game One-Hundred: Tigers 4, Blue Jays 2

 

a lovely evening, at first

An uncharacteristically hittable Alek Manoah gave up four runs on seven hits before leaving the game once struck upon(st) the pitching arm by a comeback-liner in the sixth, but even if none of that had happened, it's tough to win any game where you only put together four hits, isn't it, even if one of them is (yet another) home run by Matt Chapman (who continues to be just an absolute pleasure to have around; no complaints whatsoever). Early reports suggest Manoah may have have dodged a bullet, if not a baseball (haha!), in that he will probably not even miss a start: no break, no soft tissue damage. It's fine. We're fine. It's all fine.

KS

2022 Game Ninety-Nine: Blue Jays 5, Tigers 3

 

I like it every time somebody says
"that one died a hero" on a broken-bat base hit

Baseball is at its best, to me, when it is at its friendliest, which it very much was in the bottom of the seventh of this merry affair, when Vladimir Guerrero Jr. tipped his cap (a batting helmet is a type of cap, surely) in an extended fashion as he rounded first in acknowledgement of Detroit centre-fielder Willi Castro's nifty catch on what was something of a laser to the gap. Next up was Alejandro Kirk, who knocked a "hustle double" (they're all hustle doubles for my man here) to right, and was greeted at second base by a friendly little glove-hand tap on the rump by Javier Báez (friend of the squad). I was in a good place to enjoy all of these because of Matt Chapman's two home runs earlier in the evening and, above all, Yusei Kikuchi's single run allowed in his five innings of work. Yusei Kikuchi did a great job, everybody! He has been emboldened by our support! Of him!  

KS