2022 Games One-Hundred-Thirty-Three and One-Hundred-Thirty-Four: Blue Jays 7, Orioles 3 (Game 1), Blue Jays 8, Orioles 4 (Game 2)

 

Some call it "Bo-ing yard"

Bo Bichette made enormous contributions to both halves of the rainy Labour Day doubleheader in Baltimore, becoming only the second Blue Jay to hit three home runs in a single game before his twenty-fifth birthday (guess who the other one is [okay I will just tell you {it's Vladdy}]) in the evening game, after intervening with a quickness in the early game when Kevin Gausman grew understandably irate over crew chief Jeff Nelson's decision to call a balk on what is Kevin Gausman's normal delivery from the stretch, the same one he has used all season, and that he continued to use every single pitch from the stretch after the call today. That was a truly unwieldy opening sentence but there was just so much great stuff yesterday that I am all jumbled up about it, and Bo was in the thick of all of it. Had he not kept Gausman from truly flipping his wig, it could have been an awfully long day for the Blue Jays bullpen, but instead, it was easy work: both starters pitched into the seventh, and gave all of the highest-leverage arms (Romano, Yimi, Bass) a day's rest after a couple pretty heavy days in Pittsburgh to seal the deal on the series sweep. Curiously, the 7-3 game was actually a nail-biter (until the Blue Jays three-run ninth), whereas the 8-4 evening game was never close. You'd never know it from the finals! They look like the same game! And yet. 

I am feeling pretty good with two games remaining in the series and Alek Manoah going in one of them, and I hope you are feeling that way too. Before that, though, there is Mitch White, so kind of a coin toss, maybe? If he can keep it close through five, the bullpen should be in pretty good shape to take it the rest of the way, though, for reasons already discussed. How cheering to think that, should the Blue Jays win Tuesday, and the Yankees lose, the Blue Jays would be closer to the AL East lead (4.5 games back) than to the first non-playoff position (5.5 games ahead). If we accept the Orioles are still "in it" as regards the final wild card spot, and I think we are forced to accept that much, then it is no less true that the Blue Jays are still "in it" as regards the division title, especially with three more games to play against the Yankees. September baseball! 

KS