2022 Game One-Hundred-Sixty-Four: Mariners 10, Blue Jays 9

 

oh no

The last time a seven-run lead fell apart in a jam-packed SkyDome, before God and Geddy Lee, it was Opening Day, wasn't it? When the Blue Jays bats bailed José Berríos out of an improbably and distressingly poor start? Turnabout is fair play, as they say, and yet it is simultaneously a huge drag (that part is implied, possibly). I contend that Saturday's game offered us in microcosm the complete experience of watching any and every postseason run that ends in anything less than the World Series championship itself, regardless of how long it lasts and how close it all comes: the initial tension that so far surpasses what we're used to in baseball that it barely feels like baseball anymore (watching playoff baseball, a Phillies observer noted, is like watching a loved one try to defuse a bomb), followed by the "surprised by joy" period in which you can't believe this is actually working out, and then the final fairly crushing realization that no, it's totally isn't, is it (no [it is not]). This can take weeks, but, saving us all a lot of time, this took just the one day. It is like Mrs. Dalloway! I think Virginia Woolf is good but I don't think I have read that one! And yet I am sure of it. Kevin Gausman's splitter was splitting, Téo hit two home runs that had me projecting a future, decades hence, in which we all referred to this as The Téo Game (I got a little ahead of myself arguably), and then the first of the Mariners two four-run innings got extremely in the way. If nothing else, this game confirmed that I have been correct to extremely uneasy around Carlos Santana all these many years: he really got ahold of that one off Tim Mayza, didn't he? Yimi Garcia's two outs in the seventh settled me right back down, and of all the various decisions that have been second-guessed in the days since, the only move that really struck me at the time was John Schneider sending Anthony Bass out to start the next inning, rather than let Yimi keep on rolling, but I quickly brushed those thoughts aside in the moment, remembering first that I have a disproportionate level of faith in the abilities of Yimi Garcia, and that Anthony Bass has been very good since coming over from the Marlins. But Bass couldn't get anybody out, like literally anybody, and from there, we were really in it. And yet had that little two-out bloop bases-clearing double not landed just between Bo Bichette and George Springer as they barreled towards each other, we'd have been out of it, too. You can't really blame Jordan Romano, who got a soft pop-up; you can't really blame George Springer, as, with two outs and everybody running on contact, those three runs were going to score even if he holds back and plays it on a hop rather than laying out for it; and you can't really blame Bo (at least I do not) for trying to make a play on a ludicrously well-placed pop-up until the moment he is called off by Springer, which he did not appear to be (could he have heard it even if he had been?). Bo is taking it on the chin in a lot of the commentary on this game, but to me, that ball was dropping either way, and imagine what they would have to say about it if it did so right after he peeled off (had he peeled, I mean)? That ball was set down in precisely the spot where it landed by either a vengeful god or the immutable laws of the universe but either way it was dropping (how many times were the rueful words "that's down for a hit" uttered in my home on this day? some say we are uttering still). And so why wasn't Jackie Bradley Jr., the far better fielder, in the game for Springer at that late stage, some have asked, for the obviously ailing Springer (three strikeouts, and not quite able to snag a tough ball at the wall earlier on)? This is probably a reasonable question, but I think the long and the short of it all -- of all of it! at least for me! -- is that in Game One, the bullpen was good but the boys did not bop, and in Game Two, the boys bopped as noisily as one could ever hope, but the bullpen, which had been good throughout the second half of the season (when it had attained its final form), and had helped the Blue Jays win the second-most one-run games in MLB (second only to the Dodgers), just couldn't get anybody out. To me, it's not a question of managerial strategy: John Schneider went to a number of relief pitchers who have pitched well, and they did not pitch well.

The long faces (and e-faces, of which I mostly speak right now) about this game are all entirely understandable, and yet I do not at all share the (to me) hyperbolic view that this is the worst loss in Blue Jays history. I feel that this view is ahistorical and lacks a sense of proportion (there, I said it). This was the second game of a three-game series in which we were down one game to none; this was not the third straight loss in the 1985 ALCS we'd been leading 3-1; this is not the seventh straight loss to end the 1987 season (Tony Fernandez, his wrist fractured) and cost us the AL East; this is not even the 1991 ALCS that we dropped 4-1 to a Minnesota Twins team that we had precious little business losing to; this isn't 2015, when the Blue Jays really did seem to be the best team in either league at the end of the season, only to get Kansas City'd in the ALCS again (happens every thirty years, like clockwork; I am already a little sad about 2045). Take a look around the rest of this Wild Card weekend and we will find a Mets team significantly better than this year's Blue Jays, who just lost to a Padres team that is no better than the Mariners, and got one-hit on the way out the door (Buck Showalter even had the umpires feel Joe Musgrave's super wet but otherwise faultless ears; complete Mets humiliation); a Cardinals team that allowed the Phillies a six-run top-of-the-ninth to lose Game One and then went quietly in Game Two to end the careers of both Albert Pujols and Yadier Molina; and a Rays team that, though the sixth seed, everyone was still totally worried about, eliminated in the fifteenth inning on a home run by Oscar Gonzalez, of all people. That's three home teams -- which is to say, higher seeds -- out of four that are gone, and the only home team -- that is to say, higher seed -- that won is probably the most lightly-regarded of any of the twelve teams that made this new postseason (prove us wrong, Guardians! get those Yankees, you guys! for real please do!). "My shit doesn't work in the playoffs," Billy Beane famously told us, and as these series get shorter (and yet longer than a single-game play-in, obviously [which may be better emotionally or worse, I can't even say yet]) we would be mistaken to take them any more seriously or to hold them to be any more revealing than we would a three-game series at pretty much any other time of year, despite the fact that we have ordered take-out for these ones, and have assembled special snacks for them. 

In the final analysis, I have had a super fun summer of Blue Jays baseball, and hope that you have as well. I would argue, in all seriousness, that there is a very real chance that we will get 'em next year, should we be spared. Let us reconvene then! And see! 

KS 

2022 Game One-Hundred-Sixty-Three: Mariners 4, Blue Jays 0

 

that one ran in a little extra

Alek Manoah's shaky three-run first inning before he settled in reasonably well the rest of the way wouldn't have been an insurmountable problem, except for how Luis Castillo pitched a masterpiece: Castillo's 100MPH sinker was hitting corners all evening like it was no big deal (to me? it is), and as if that weren't enough, that same pitch had as much as six inches of "run" inside to right-handed batters, which led to some swings that looked uncompetitive (I am sure everybody meant to compete) from really, really good hitters (our boys!). It felt like as strong a pitching performance as the Blue Jays have seen all year, which seemed to be confirmed by this note from Seattle reporter Aaron Goldsmith: "Castillo and Munoz [who relieved Castillo] threw a combined 71 fastballs. 10 were 100+ mph. 29 were 99+ mph. 96.2 was the SLOWEST," and that slowest fastball, Goldsmith notes, was Castillo's one-hundred-and-first pitch. So while I am sure Alek Manoah did not leave the game feeling great about his performance, despite a generous and kind ovation from the largely quieted SkyDome crowd, it wouldn't have mattered if he'd give up one run, or a dozen: Luis Castillo pitched very nearly unhittably, our only real chances coming on two separate "two-on, two-out" at-bats, one for Vladdy, and one for Bo. Because we went down almost immediately, and things stayed that way for three hours, this game felt like a bit of a slog, aside from the exquisite company and exquisite sushi (by Shige, of course). I feel pretty good about this next one though! Kevin Gausman! Dimitri's Pizza! We can do this!   

KS

2022 Games One-Hundred-Sixty-One and One-Hundred-Sixty-Two: Orioles 5, Blue Jays 4 (Game One), Blue Jays 5, Orioles 1

 

still about as good as it gets

The last day of the season is always a little sad, even when it isn't, isn't it: after splitting the Wednesday doubleheader, the Orioles finished the year with a perfectly respectable eighty-three wins to turn the page on probably the lowliest chapter (if not quite the lowliest, I'm sure it'll do, as regards lowliness) in franchise history; there is no way to look at this season as anything but a success for them, with good young players to build around and be fond of for years to come. So why did I feel as I felt when the sparse crowd (17,248 is what they wrote) stood and applauded after the final out, and the Orioles players and coaches came out of the dugout to waive their caps in acknowledgment and appreciation? I don't even like the Orioles! I like the Blue Jays! And their season isn't even over! That doom abides! But I have been a part of that crowd, dear friends; I have stood in sparse crowds with genuine thanks for a season of mediocre baseball that was drawing to its close (inevitably; irrevocably); I have done this with deep feeling and with all of my sincerity; and I have done it more than once. When it was happening yesterday, I was thinking Roger Angell thoughts, and just now I am thinking about how this is the first baseball season Roger Angell didn't get to see the end of in a really, really long time. It was a good one, and I think he would have found things to like in it.

Yesterday, running out the spring training lineup, more or less, the Blue Jays got through it all exactly as they needed to, with no regulars dinged up, and every pitcher who wanted or needed an inning or two of work getting in and out with no real trouble. It was a nice day for the rookies, Gabriel Moreno (who will likely be on the playoff roster?) and Otto Lopez (who likely will not? unless Espinal isn't quite ready?), but what I liked most was the deeply weird procession of relievers all day: game one had Richards, Cimber, Garcia, and Romano for an inning each (in that order!) followed by Mitch White for four (blown save and the loss, 1-7 on the season, sent back down to Buffalo, technically, as soon as the game ended [harsh, harsh realm]); game two saw Phelps, Bass, and Mayza each get an inning before both Casey Lawrence and (70s-style bullpen fireman? maybe?) Yusei Kikuchi got a couple each, as did Trent Thornton. Is this Camden Yards, one twitter user wrote, or Sdray Nedmac? (It was me, and I was very proud of it.) 

And so the stage is set for the Wild Card weekend, and I really really like the idea of a bunch of three-game series to open up the playoffs. The three-game series is how we structure so much of the baseball season that it feels like a number that arises organically and should have been the way we've been doing the first round all along maybe? Fundamentally I am not a man of playoff baseball, as we have discussed, and I feel that 162 games is a very good amount, as we have also discussed, but at the same time I do accept that playoffs are going to happen, and once that question is behind us, I really do think the three-game series is a great idea, and I think that I will think that even if the Blue Jays get utterly washed in two which is not even my expectation because I like our guys so much. Five o'clock start for us! We're getting Sushi Shige! Let's go!   

KS

2022 Game One-Hundred-Sixty: Blue Jays 5, Orioles 1 (F/8)

 

it was such a cold and rainy night
that there are almost no photos from it! for serious!

I feel like so much has happened since last we spoke: everything's settled now! The Blue Jays will host! The Mariners! Major League Baseball has quite cleverly orchestrated things just so as to guarantee 1977 Expansion representation in the ALDS and I personally could not be more pleased about it. This series should be a lot of fun unless it is a source of upset and misery! Could go either way! And what of the win with which the Blue Jays sealed their part of this deal? It didn't look like it was any fun at all to play, what with the persistent rain amid temperatures that led Cedric Mullins to wear something just short of a ski-mask under his batting helmet (and indeed his hat). José Berríos turned in a very fine start, aided pretty hard by a nice Teoscar Hernandez grab in the right field corner that would otherwise have been several runs for sure. At the plate, we had Vladdy, of course, ripping his thirty-second home of the season (I think?) over the newly-Vladdy-resistant left field wall, and Whitt Merrifield just flying around causing all kinds of chaos: bunt single that puts him on second with an errant throw, a dash to third on a ball hit to short, and a scooting home on a ball that couldn't have been ten feet from the catcher. Lots to like! And just as the Blue Jays loaded the bases in the top of eighth, it was deemed enough: rain delay, thirty minute wait, okay everybody go home. And then we clinched! With the Mariners loss to Detroit, so it wasn't a wild on-field sort of thing. But the remaining doubleheader to be played Thursday will be no less gloriously meaningless because of that. Yusei Kikuchi, eighteen innings? Maybe it's what he needs to get sorted out! I kid but I do hope he pitches at least a little. I continue to find him deeply sympathetic. 

KS 

2022 Game One-Hundred-Fifty-Nine: Blue Jays 6, Red Sox 3

 

Whitt Merrifield sneaking home, sneakily

Teoscar Hernandez only hit one home run Saturday, but don't worry, he hit two Sunday; it's going to be okay. Whitt Merrifield had one, too, giving him four in the last little while, a little while over which he is batting like .421? Given the way his first few weeks in Toronto went, one could argue he was extremely due! But however we may wish to conceptualize his performance, it has, of late, ruled, fundamentally. This was all enormously helpful, because Kevin Gausman got BABIP'd into a pair of runs early, and then left in the fourth with a little cut on his finger (we were assured afterwards that it is just a teensy little cut, and not serious, and certainly not the dreaded blister). This meant the bullpen needed to put together six full innings-worth of outs (that's eighteen! of them!), and Zach Pop really led the charge, fielding his position brilliantly in two innings of work that honestly felt like more? In a good way? Pop ended up with the win, and Romano the save, making this the first MLB game in which Canadians were credited with the win and the save in the same game. Isn't that weird? You'd think somewhere along the line that would have happened, right? And yet here we are.   

Where we are is also here: at ninety wins with three games to play! Ninety-win seasons are rare and precious things and must be recognized as such; they are super hard to do, and we must cherish each one. This is the first time the Blue Jays have won ninety-or-more games in consecutive seasons since doing it three times in a row from 1991 through 1993, and you will you no doubt recall that those seasons were the best (1991 was tough at the end but we did get the All-Star Game). To my delight, the Rays dropped a couple of games in Houston over the weekend (hey: it happens) which removes the dreaded Trop as first-round playoff destination; this is a great relief to me personally. And with Robbie Ray (disappointing year!) getting touched up for three home runs against the lowly Oakland Athletics, the Mariners have slipped a little further behind the Blue Jays, too: with three Blue Jays games remaining, and four Mariners ones, the Blue Jays' "magic number" to secure SkyDomeField-advantage (that's mine, coined just now, but you can use it) is merely two, which is to say, any combination of Blue Jays wins and Seattle losses that totals "merely two" is enough to wrap it up in our favour. Seattle has a doubleheader scheduled for Tuesday, and the Blue Jays might end up doing something very similar, as the weather in Baltimore looks super rainy tonight (and maybe tomorrow! [just showers Wednesday, I think they said]) and they stubbornly refuse to build a roof over Camden Yards. So I guess we'll just see how it all ends! But one hopes hardest, if one is me, for an utterly stress-free Wednesday game in Baltimore, with all of this already sorted, freeing Yusei Kikuchi to go out there and toss like a 14k no-hitter (eleven walks).

KS

2022 Game One-Hundred-Fifty-Eight: Blue Jays 10, Red Sox 0

 

go Téo

Aside from Ross Stripling's brilliant six innings, and the three lovely innings the bullpen offered afterwards, the thing that really stood out to me about Friday night's game was how the Blue Jays scored ten runs on twenty-one hits, led by Bo Bichette's four, Téo's four (including a home run), and Danny Jansen's three (which also included a home run and five RBI). I have never witnessed a season-long walloping of the kind the Blue Jays have delivered unto the Red Sox this season, and indeed I think this is statistically as badly as Toronto has ever outplayed an opponent over the whole summer (the baseball summer [which includes a little spring, a little {maybe a lot of} fall]). It has been argued that the Red Sox are better than their record indicates, and that they might well have been a contender this year had they played in the AL Central (Boston, that great city of the great lakes; makes sense to me), and I don't know about all that necessarily, but I can say with certainty that if they hadn't played the Blue Jays this season they'd have like thirteen fewer losses, which would help. And yet I do not wish to help.  A rough year in Boston, and their fans can't even console themselves with the knowledge that as bad as things may be, they still have Jackie Bradley Jr. out there, because they don't; his transformation into Blue Jays Legend Jackie Bradley Jr. was immediate and totalizing, and I love it.

KS   

2022 Game One-Hundred-Fifty-Seven: Blue Jays 9, Red Sox 0

 

Vladdy: is unhurried

Home runs from Vladdy (of course), Springer (sure makes sense), and Raimel Tapia (well okay!) were all that was needed and then some as Alek Manoah cruised through six two-hit, shutout innings, and who else but our good friend Yusei Kikuchi turned up to pitch a scoreless three innings of relief (and was awarded a save in one of those special "scorer's discretion" instances). Depending on which measures you prefer, Alek Manoah may have just pitched the best single month in Blue Jays history to cap off one of the best seasons ever by a pitcher his age (the last pitcher to be this good this young may have been Doc Gooden), and Bo Bichette's two hits on the day pulled him ahead of both Tony Fernandez and "The Shaker" Lloyd Moseby for the most hits by a Blue Jay in a single month. How fortuitous that the month in question is September! Five games to go and everything very much in our hands. Four wins would almost certainly do it, and three would probably be enough? Right? 

KS