2023 Game One-Hundred-Thirty-One: Guardians 10, Blue Jays 7 (F/11)

 

this photo suggests Jansen was even more out than I perceived in real time
(and honestly he seemed pretty out even then [not his fault])

A legitimately crushing loss! This is true of pretty much all extra-inning ones, I suppose, but this one really did feel especially bad. After Yusei Kikuchi battled through a tough start to keep the Blue Jays within striking distance, as Buck Martinez noted, they struck: Davis Schneider homered again, but after the enigmatic Genesis Cabrera and Jordon Hicks held the line through the seventh, Tim Mazya could not in the eighth, yielding a pair of runs. No worry! Schneider will double in the bottom half, Varsho will drive in the run, and after Jordan Romano gets five huge outs, we'll win it in the bottom of the ninth after Danny Jansen hits a ringing lead-off double to get things started! Ah, but no: Biggio's bunt will bounce towards first, rather than third, and Jansen, who had not been pinch-run for (had they used the whole bench already, maybe? with Bichette and Chapman both leaving the game, maybe so . . .), will be tagged out on a nice play from Calhoun to the great José Ramirez. And the tenth won't be a whole lot of fun either, despite Yimi Garcia coming through huge again: Belt, Vladdy, and Springer will each, in their turn, leave Santiago Espinal very much stranded on second base, where he began. In the end, Jay Jackson will give up four in the eleventh, but it was the bats that lost this one, first (and most egregiously) in the ninth, and then (less egregiously but it was still pretty bad) in the tenth. Dreadful, awful stuff.

So where does this leave us? As I noted in a textual message to my pal Jordan, two-and-a-half games back is not an insurmountable situation with thirty-one games to play, especially not with Houston still not looking like the team they were last year, and with the Rangers having recently dropped eight straight (of the Mariners, winners of ten of their last eleven, we shall not speak). The Blue Jays' next twelve games are against teams well under .500, and then they play the Rangers, a scuffling team that they're chasing, for four at home (including a Loonie Dogs night). When you look at it somewhat dispassionately, this all remains entirely possible, and not much has to even go all that exceptionally well in order to put us very much where we would like to be (I will not say "need" to be, as this is a very clear besoins vs désires situation). But just in terms of vibes—on the level of vibes alone—this one felt like we're through. My sincere hope, of course, is that I am just totally mistaken with regard to the vibes, but even the most optimistic among us (which could very well be me!) must have been given pause be the true debacle of these supper-hour Sunday innings. 

KS