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| 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
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