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| honestly? not half bad! (game one) |
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| honestly? really fully completely good! (game two) |
It was low-key dispiriting even for those of us unafflicted by tummy issues to begin the day with the knowledge that Alek Manoah would not, as it happened, be starting game one of the day/night doubleheader against the Rays, owing very much to overnight symptoms that left him . . . dehydrated. This meant the game-two plan became the game-one plan, and as far as game two stood, who knew? But two things must be said of the Blue Jays 4-2 afternoon loss: i) the pitching was actually really very good, in that although Julian Merryweather allowed a run as "the opener," it was only the one run, after which the recently recalled Mitch White essentially gave us a quality start (three earned runs over six innings), and David Phelps finished with two clean innings, so great job all around fellows, to not tax the bullpen really at all; and ii) home-plate umpire Ramon Silvestre De Jesus Ferrer had just a tremendous game, realistically as good as it gets, as revealed by the remarkable ball/strike accuracy (which sounds like a character stat [or results table] in a Palladium martial arts rpg when you say it like that) and in terms of getting tricky calls exactly unfailingly immediately right even when they were a little awkward, like sending a runner back to first after inadvertent batter-follow-through contact with the catcher. You can go a whole season without seeing that call once! And De Jesus made it twice! Clearly and correctly both times! It is very easy (fun, too!) to focus on the antagonistic umpires who attempt to cover their declining skill (hey: it comes for us all) through sheer bluster, but when a young(ish) umpire calls a game so expertly and with such poise, let us call attention to that too, maybe, right? Anyway great job!
Game two, of course, offered so many riches that the quality of umpiring isn't even something that made the least impression on me, in that I was like oh hee hee oh hee hee hee pretty much the whole time: not only did Alek Manoah end up making the start, but he pitched into the seventh, allowing just two runs on solo homers (everybody loves Ji-Man Choi, and I can't imagine anybody's problem is with Jonathan Aranda). The Blue Jays didn't manage a run until the sixth, when two "productive outs" from Bo Bichette and Alejandro Kirk scored Vladdy's lead-off double (he has not homered in quite some time, but doubles are fine!). And then the seventh: walks and wild pitches to put Espinal and Jansen (transmuted into Bradley Zimmer) aboard (and then move them around a little) just in time for Whit Merrifield's two-run double just inside the bag at third. George Springer's first home run of September could not really have been better timed, and there you have it, a four-run seventh for a two-run lead! Adam Cimber got into a little trouble with two out in the eighth, so on came Romano for what looked like a four-out save, but after he got a nice easy ground ball to end the inning, the Blue Jays added two more in the eighth, including, most remarkably, Téo's double that scored Alejandro Kirk all the way from first without a throw (such was the dauntlessness of Kirk's hustle). With a five-run lead, why not just throw Zach Pop out there for the ninth? And so they did.
Sometimes you look at the standings after splitting a double-header and it's like "well why did we even bother?", but that is not at all the way it feels this time, seeing that the Mariners' loss puts the Blue Jays in the top wild card spot for the first time in what feels like a while (I very recently said I would not concern myself with which wild card spot the Blue Jays were in at any particular moment, and I do still feel that way, but I am definitely not above exalting for a moment here and there), but more importantly, even with Baltimore's comeback win over the lowly Nationals, the Blue Jays are still clear of the Orioles by five-and-a-half games, now with only twenty to go (can you believe it? I pretty much can't!). If the Blue Jays can win either tonight's Kevin Gausman game, or tomorrow afternoon's Ross Stripling start, this five-game series against the Rays will have been a really, really big deal for us.
KS
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