 |
| 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
No comments:
Post a Comment