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