2022 One-Hundred-Fifty-Six: Yankees 8, Blue Jays 3

 

fair play to him

This one was pretty interesting until it got out of hand: Gerrit Cole was perfect until Danny Jansen's home run kicked off a three-run inning to tie it in the sixth (credit to Mitch White who got touched up but was not utterly blasted), but by the time Adam Cimber botched a throw to the plate and got so frustrated at himself that he then forgot to cover home plate (that's a two-run error!) it was very much a wrap. In between, of course, Aaron Judge hit his sixty-first home run of one of the best seasons you will ever see anybody have ever, and, characteristically, he seemed like a pretty nice guy throughout? A significant moment in American League history, if not in baseball history broadly I suppose (the National League: has had some guys), but more significant still for the Blue Jays was Baltimore's loss against the Red Sox the following afternoon, which clinched our first wild card spot in . . . well in just the two years, really, although the 2020 season was strange for any number of reasons (all derived from the one big reason, I suppose). And so here we are! We could lose our last six games (our last eight overall, then) and still be in the playoffs! But let's not! Because I cannot help but feel that if we end up at the Trop that it is curtains, just utterly curtains. Seattle has faded to such an extent that WC3 does not seem all that likely for the Blue Jays (haha prove me wrong, boys!), and I don't even know that that final wild card spot is as desirable, in the end, as I have thought it might be literally all season long, as the Guardians have low-key been better than anybody these last couple weeks. WC2 would maybe be okay if Seattle finished in WC1, which, again, is unlikely, meaning, I think, that WC2 is a ticket to the Trop. And so while it is not literally "WC1 or bust," it sort of is as far as my cares are concerned? It's Alek Manoah on the hill tonight against the Red Sox, in what we will hope to be his final start of the regular season: John Schneider has said he wants Manoah available to pitch the final game against Baltimore if (and, of course, only if) home-field is on the line, which would take Manoah out of the whole wild card round, which you would hate to see, but I get it. I would like to close by noting the odd fact that the Blue Jays have spent literally every day of this baseball season in a playoff position, which is actually totally wild, and compels us, I think, to reflect upon how tumultuous things can feel over the course of even a totally successful good season by a good team. In a sense, bad teams play under a fairly fixed tumult-ceiling, don't they? In that you can only realistically worry so much about them? As is so often the case, there is much to consider.

KS