 |
| 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
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