2023 Game-One-Hundred-Sixty-One: Rays 7, Blue Jays 5 (F/10)

 

hey thanks all the same man

Although Hyun-Jin Ryu's (possible? probable?) last start as a Toronto Blue Jay did not go disastrously—two runs through three innings is not the end of the world, right?—John Schneider was not messing around, especially given the quality of contact (it was relatively high!), and went to Trevor Richards early. Richards, who has been a huge part of the bullpen this season, made a decent pitch to Harold Ramirez that somehow ended up just over the left-field wall for a two-run shot that evened the score at four (ah phooey) after Varsho had homered in the third and the Blue Jays had cobbled together a three-run fourth (Kirk single, Keirmaier walk, Chapman out on a nice play by Josh Lowe, a booted ball on a Merrifield dribbler, RBI singles from Varsho and Springer, the rare Biggio called strike three, and then Vladdy called out on strikes with two runners on to end the inning—could have used those extra runs!). The Rays, whose playoff position is unchanged and unchangeable, came into this one planning to give all of their high-leverage guys an inning or so, and then to rest them both Sunday and (of course) Monday ahead of Tuesday's first Wild Card game in Tampa (or I suppose St. Petersburg), so it was tough sledding from there. I liked literally every one of John Schneider's moves in this game, especially his decision to use Romano for the eighth and Hicks for the ninth (as speculated upon recently within these very electronic pages! the ones of this weblog!), but the Rays are a really good team who played a really good game and got the best of us. It would have been great if Biggio could have cashed in that Springer double in the bottom of the ninth, though! A walk-off clincher! But no.

There was no way around it, at least not that I could see, but it is something of a shame that we burned the back-end of our bullpen trying to nail this one down, and so now head into tomorrow's perhaps season-defining game with Kevin Gausman (who we would rather save for Tuesday! should we be playing Tuesday!) backed by just whoever didn't totally overdo it today (Chad Green did not appear, I suppose, and Yimi, as nails as ever you could hope, got through his inning on like five pitches—so that's the eighth and ninth covered, maybe!). Of course, should the Mariners lose to Texas tonight, the only thing in question tomorrow will be the Blue Jays' potential ninetieth win, and while that is an enormous deal to me personally, I could accept making it a Bowden Francis/Jay Jackson sort of affair instead of running our ace out there in pursuit of my own very particular enjoyment. Actually, let's look in live (at this, the moment of composition) to see how things are going in Seattle: oh okay it is 4-0 Rangers through three! That's fairly good! It is probably worth noting, though, that the Rangers bullpen is legitimately appalling, both morally (in that it has Aroldis Chapman), but also in terms of getting outs, so this one is a long way from over. Will I be staying up too late to attend to it? Not as late as you might think! Because of this game's much more reasonable start-time than you might expect! The walk-off this afternoon would have really been something to see, and a fitting end to today's tense and honestly fantastic game, but at this point I will gladly settle for some Saturday night anticlimax (what a sport!). 

KS 

2023 Game One-Hundred-Sixty: Blue Jays 11, Rays 4

 

hey bro good job bro thanks bro you too bro

So merry were the forty-two-thousand-or-so in attendance on this night—cheered, as they were, by home runs from Kirk, Belt, and Chapman; a four-for-five night from Bo; and Yusei Kikuchi pitching at, well, not quite at Maximum Kooch, but certainly at Kooch Sufficient—that they greeted youngster Cam Eden's MLB-début at-bat with a standing ovation, and offered him very much the same as he walked back to the third-base dugout having struck out. That was honestly pretty wild! The Rays, in keeping with their surprisingly un-Rays play of a week ago, committed three errors on the night, some of them so ghastly that you felt worse for the player involved (in this case the likeable Manuel Margot) than you felt glad about the few extra bases you'd picked up (Cavan Biggio's little-league home run tests the limits of this phenomenon, obviously). This rollicking triumph meant the Blue Jays needed only a Mariners loss later in the evening to finalize their playoff status (if not position), but it did not come, not even a little: J. P. Crawford, a night after walking the Rangers off, opted this time for a grand slam in a laugher, instead. So it goes! This does set the stage nicely, though, for what will likely be the last start of Hyun-Jin Ryu's career as a Blue Jay, and before that happens, I would like to say once more the thing that I always say about Hyun-Jin Ryu, which is that he is my favourite pitcher to watch in Blue Jays history, more than Steib or Hentgen or Clemens or even Halladay (whose 2003 Cy Young season I saw first-hand, start to finish). An elite, precision junkballer operating in an era of unprecedently high velocity is an inherently charismatic thing, but watching Ryu has been an even greater pleasure than that description would suggest. And let us not forget that Ryu's genuinely surprising decision to sign in Toronto (or was it, to the extent that Ryu moved from the home of one of North America's largest Korean communities to another such place? who can say?) was the first indication that this might be a place to play again. When that four-year deal was signed, the fourth year was really what made it happen: nobody else was offering it to a pitcher Ryu's age, and as a fan, you just accepted that an expensive fourth season that probably wouldn't hold much on-field value was simply part of the price to paid if you wanted to land a front-of-the-rotation free-agent starting pitcher as a team that hadn't won in a while. But here he is, working his way back a year after Tommy John surgery, delivering not just quality innings but quality innings utterly vital to the Blue Jays position in this race down the stretch; it's just a remarkable thing. For me, the lasting image of Hyun-Jin Ryu will be that of the big man walking off the field like nothing at all had happened when what had in fact just happened was that absolutely peak Aaron Judge, of all people, had been put so badly off balance by this craftiest of lefties that he had swung through an 88MPH fastball for strike three. On the specific day I am thinking of, I am absolutely certain that we had a big bowl of Timbits before us (we ate too many [it was mostly me]). 

One more win!    

KS

2023 Game One-Hundred-Fifty-Nine: Blue Jays 6, Yankees 0

 

the æstheticL: is houndwave

Chris Bassit struck out Aaron Judge in the eighth to end a terrific start and, no less radly, hit precisely two-hundred innings on the season. He seemed pretty emotional about it afterwards, and why not? It's a really big deal! The amount of innings the Blue Jays have gotten out of their starters this year has been remarkable, with four starters making thirty starts, and I think only seven starters pitching at all this year? The Blue Jays seem likely to finish with the second-best ERA in all of baseball, despite Opening-Day-starter Alek Manoah experiencing, let us say, several difficulties. Home runs from Varsho, Belt, and Matt Chapman (his first since August 4th) were more than enough! I stayed up late after this one to catch the end of the Mariners/Rangers games, and even the Blue Jays really could have used a Seattle loss, it was hard not to enjoy an Aroldis Chapman meltdown (as he is a really bad guy, though this is rarely discussed anymore) and a J.P. Crawford walkoff (as he is a wonderful baseball player just to, like, behold). 

Two wins and we're in! Or if any number of other scenarios play out as well! But even so! 

KS

2023 Game One-Hundred-Fifty-Eight: Yankees 6, Blue Jays 0

well fine

Surprising no one, Aaron Judge homered twice, and Gerrit Cole pitched a complete-game shutout to wrap up not just the AL Cy Young, but almost certainly every first-place vote for that award. We still need a couple wins, guys! I know that it remains a remote mathematical possibility that we can make the playoffs with just the eighty-seven we have currently but I still think we should try for more (if for no other reason than that ninety-win seasons are the playoffs of my heart; I love a ninety-win season [probably more than is sensible or appropriate {the actual playoffs I could honestly almost take or leave}]). 

KS

2023 Game One-Hundred-Fifty-Seven: Yankees 2, Blue Jays 0

 

Bo Bichette encounters a pregame quantum filament

In fairness to Vladdy, who watched a called strike three sail by with two outs and the bases loaded in the third, it was a ball outside, just off the plate. But in fairness to home plate umpire Malachi Moore (tremendous name, obviously), that's the toughest pitch to see, and with Michael King on the mound—a guy who lives on the corners, and paints them with regularity—he's going to get a lot of those calls. I'm not upset about it! It's a shame, though, that the Blue Jays bats couldn't get anything going at all after that, and wasted another wonderful Kevin Gausman start (7IP, 0ER, 3H, 5K, 2BB). It's also concerning that Romano got touched again, and it wouldn't hurt my feelings any if they decided Jordan Hicks should take the ninth the rest of the way? I see no real chance of that happening, but it is for sure a thought I have had! This makes two games out of the last four that Romano has given up runs in the ninth, and I cannot help but notice that had those two losses been wins, we'd pretty much have a playoff spot locked down already . . . but we do need to score; that also numbers among our needs. 

KS 

2023 Game One-Hundred-Fifty-Six: Blue Jays 9, Rays 5

 

send him send him send him

The George Springer game! Even had he not hit a three-run inside-the-park home run in the top of the third inning, the outfield assist (threw a dude out at second by a mile) and diving catch in the bottom half would have made it a pretty solid day for our guy. What a huge difference the move to right field has been: rather than playing an okay centre field, and DHing kind of a lot to nurse the injuries picked up from flinging himself around out there (for better or worse, the man is a gamer), Springer plays a great (if headlong) right, and stays healthy enough to steal twenty bases or so. I will take that every time! Two homers from Vladdy (his first two-homer game of the year, a little sadly), including a back-to-back situation with Bo in the ninth (somehow the first time those two have ever done that) made for just a supremely merry day. And to think I nearly turned the game off when Kikuchi had a rough first and we went down two early! Fortunately my Sunday afternoon plans did not exceed puttering about with light chores, so keeping the game on came quite naturally despite a momentary misgiving. I can't remember feeling this good after three games at the Trop ever, though I'm sure we must have swept them there once in like 2003 or something. A four-and-two road trip through New York and Tampa Bay is always to be welcomed, and would have stood us in fairly good stead regardless of what else happened around the league this weekend, but the Rangers swept the Mariners (that's good) while the one-hundred-loss Royals swept the Astros (that's great!), which is not just a favourable but in fact a literally perfect outcome. A 87-69 record is a really good thing to have with six games left in the season, and while three more wins (wouldn't ninety be tidy? I am so into ninety-win seasons) would guarantee us a spot regardless of what else happens, two would probably do it, and honestly we might make it with just one more, given the way things are unfolding. The lessons of 1987 loom large these many years later, and I cannot in heart rule out an utter, calamitous collapse. So let's just get out there and make it ninety, boys, and wrap it up before the weekend, even, so we can rest Gausman (aka Gaus Gossage [nobody says this {yet}]) for game one-sixty-two, and run out just the absolute wildest eight-man bullpen day any of us have ever seen.

KS  

2023 Game One-Hundred-Fifty-Five: Rays 7, Blue Jays 6

 

a classic "can't win 'em all" moment that barely even stung

No, Jordan Romano couldn't quite seal the deal in the ninth (though he would have been out of the inning had a double-play call not been [quite rightly] overturned). But it is remarkable that it even got that far: down 4-0 after the first inning, and 5-0 soon enough thereafter on the three (three!) home runs allowed by Hyun-Jin Ryu (tying a career high for that steadiest of guys), there was no reason to expect much from the rest of this one. These Rays, while still excellent, are not quite the Rays you remember, though: their bullpen is not a true strength, and they are prone to both defensive and baserunning miscues. They are capable of messing up! And they sure did, with two down in the sixth, as things unfolded thus(ly): Keirmaier safe on a throwing error, Tyler Heineman to first on a strike-three wild-pitch (oops!), Springer double, Bo single, Vladdy single, Biggio double. You will forgive me, I hope, for posting specific rally details two games in a row, but stringing hits together for big innings has not really been a defining feature of this 2023 Blue Jays season, and I am ready to embrace it! I'm going to do it again for the eighth, too, because this one was really something: Espinal double (the speedy Cam Eden on for Espinal), Springer groundout that moves the runner to third, wild pitch to score Eden, Vladdy walk, Chapman hit by a pitch (a fastball this time that looked brutal, very much last night's breaking ball), and a walk to Whit to force in another run. What a gift! I'm telling you, these Rays, even though they walked us off in the ninth, these Rays are beatable, even in the Trop, even by us. 

KS   

2023 Game One-Hundred-Fifty-Four: Blue Jays 6, Rays 2

 

more like Daulton Varshow

Through the first five (and a third!) innings, it sure looked as though we were going to get Tyler Glasnowed every bit as much as we'd been Gerrit Coled the night before. But things took a real turn from there: George Springer singled and stole second, Bo singled, Vladdy walked, Kirk walked (and it was honestly a beauty of a walk), Biggio walked (heck of an eye as always), Matt Chapman was hit by a pitch about as willingly as one can be without the umpire waving the whole business off, and Varsho singled. Before you know it, that's a four-run inning! Throw in a Varsho homer in the ninth and a couple doubles (Merrifield, Espinal), and we're good to go. Daulton Varsho, let it be known, has been the most valuable fielder in baseball this season by Defensive Runs Saved, and this while playing mostly left field, relieving Kevin Keirmaier only sporadically (Varsho will probably be our everyday centre fielder next year, and could easily win a Gold Glove). When he's not hitting, Varsho still contributes significantly as a fielder and a baserunner; when he is hitting, he's among, like, the very most useful baseball players there can be. And he's still pretty new! He'll be around for years! Also around for years: Chris Bassitt, who struck out eight and walked nary a dude pitching into the seventh, and Jordan Romano, who picked up the save (Jordan Hicks, who struck out all three batters he faced, will probably go make an awful lot of money somewhere the second the season ends, and fair play to him). And if all this wasn't enough, the Home Hardware Out-of-Town Scoreboard (it will never be the St. Louis Bar and Grill Out-of-Town scoreboard to me; I was forged in the fires of the Fan590 in the slim radio era) was exceptionally kind to us. The Trop is probably still cursed but this was great! 

KS  

Game One-Hundred-Fifty-Three: Yankees 5, Blue Jays 3

 

I mean, what can you even say

Despite the fairly convincing Steiner Math of my previous post, the Blue Jays did not in fact beat Gerrit Cole, who took a perfect game into the sixth, didn't walk a soul all night, and struck out nine in his two-hit, eight-inning, AL Cy Young-clinching performance (seriously, he could get shelled in his final start and it wouldn't matter a lick). So it goes, I suppose, as Gerrit Cole is a genetic freak, and not normal. Far worse than the loss itself (which didn't even sting, honestly; this one was a true "can't win 'em all"), I made the mistake of leaving the radio on in the driveway for a minute or two after the actual game ended, which meant Blair and Barker and Blue Jays Talk, and even before any calls came in it was beyond absurd: the Blue Jays will be in real trouble in the playoffs, Barker declared with an almost slobbering bluster, because of their inability to hit pitchers as good as Gerrit Cole; and in the playoffs, that's what you're going to see, pitchers as good as Gerrit Cole! Dude, how? How are you going to see pitchers as good as Gerrit Cole in the playoffs if there are literally no other pitchers as good as Gerrit Cole (this is essentially the whole point of Gerrit Cole), and he himself, actual Gerrit Cole, is absolutely not going to be in the playoffs? I am as free of sports-talk drivel as anyone who likes baseball as much as I do can ever hope to be, honestly, like I am almost never around it, and yet I still regret every single second of it I encounter. It defies parody (probably; I haven't tried). I will not speak of it again.

Thus ends the Blue Jays fairly delicious five-game winning streak. What a time it has been! And here's where it leaves us, with just nine games to play: the good news is that we're still in WC2 by half a game over both Seattle and Texas, and we have the exact same 85-68 record as Houston, over whom we hold the tiebreaker. The bad news is that we're off to the Trop for three against the Rays (oh no). But the good news beyond all of that is that starting today, one of the three teams against whom the Blue Jays are competing for a WC spot—Houston, Seattle, Texas—absolutely and certainly and without question will lose every day for the rest of the season. They cannot help but do; it is inescapable; it is schedule-inescapable. And so every day that the Blue Jays win, they will gain a full game in the standings relative to one of those three; every day that they lose, they will not lose ground against at least one of those three. This sets up about as well as it could, given that the Blue Jays have six games remaining against Tampa, and that they will almost certainly see Gerrit Cole again in the final Yankees series. Given those fairly awful things, we're looking good!

KS

2023 Game One-Hundred-Fifty-Two: Blue Jays 6, Yankees 1

 

tee hee hee

This one felt much closer than the final score might suggest, as the Blue Jays scratched out just the one run against reliever-turned-starter Michael King over the course of his seven innings of thirteen-strikeout, no-walk, somewhat upsetting baseball. But Kevin Gausman was great, too, and benefited significantly from home-plate umpire Lance Barrett's preposterously low strike zone. That strike zone paired with Gausman's splitter (among the best pitches in either league) would be one thing, but add in Alejandro Kirk's remarkable ability to frame low strikes, and Aaron Boone stood no real chance of not getting run in the second inning (I mention this because of how it totally happened). But the Yankees bullpen is really not very good, and more or less handed the Blue Jays five runs, whereas the Blue Jays bullpen is simply excellent (the best we've had since the early nineties, I think? I would have to check that statistically, but emotionally there is no question) and allowed just the one (it's okay, Erik Swanson; you've had a tough second half, buddy). And that's five wins in a row! This is all going great! Gerrit Cole pitches tomorrow, though, which is a real problem because he's the obvious AL Cy Young this year to such an extent that it's hard to see who else could even get first-place votes. Yet José Berrios, who we've got due up tomorrow, has an ERA only like 0.6 runs higher, and we don't expect either pitcher to pitch a complete game, so let's say they both go seven: that'd work out to a difference of less than half a run between them tomorrow! And our bullpen is definitely more than half a run better than this slopshow the Yankees are running out there, right? I am not even kidding when I say that I have legitimately convinced myself that not only can we beat Gerrit Cole, but that it won't even necessarily be that hard.  

KS

2023 Game One-Hundred-Fifty-One: Blue Jays 7, Yankees 1

 

Bo, seen here flowing

It's hard not to wonder if this Yankee-stadium trouncing—one that offered homers from George Springer (a leadoff dinger! on his birthday!), Alejandro Kirk (first one since July! [yikes]), and Bo (who started a nice double play too), all while Yusei Kikuchi dealt at levels at or near Maximum Kooch—might end up the emotional high point of the season? Like if things don't super work out the rest of the way? Because brother, this one was merry. The only trouble, really, if you could call it that, is that Kukuchi had to leave the game after five innings because of low-key trap-cramping, but he later suggested that the reason he cramped up is that he'd only slept eleven hours the night before, rather than his customary thirteen or fourteen (when he is awake more than that, he explained, he thinks about baseball too much). So even that, in the end, was pretty good? I will note here too that my scoreboard watching has escalated to the point where I am watching actual non-Blue Jays baseball games (or parts thereof), and I would characterize watching baseball in which one is not immediately, directly emotionally overinvested as quite pleasant to do! It's easy to forget that!      

KS 

2023 Game One-Hundred-Fifty: Blue Jays 3, Red Sox 2

 

Vladdy is right to have run towards Chappy instead of Biggio 
(Chappy has had a rough go and needs it more)

It came as a drag, but not exactly a surprise when Rafael Devers, down to Boston's last strike in the top of the ninth, lined a fastball Erik Swanson had thrown exactly where it should have been (just above the zone) over the left-field fence for a game-tying solo home run. He's always like that. And so it fell to Cavan Biggio, whose second-half has really been something (last I saw, his OBP was north of .400 since the break), to hit a tenth-inning single and score the winning run on a double Matt Chapman ripped off the wall soon thereafter. And so it's a sweep! How do you like that! Pretty well I bet! Hyun-Jin Ryu allowed so many baserunners in his (nearly) five innings, but remained characteristically cool as he worked his way out every time, supported in this cause by some nifty defense (a diving grab in right by Biggio, a head's-up throw home by Bo so that Kirk might tag out the runner busting home from third on the contact play [it was Devers! we got him! once!]). Yimi and Chad Green got some big outs in relief, and though the enigmatic Genesis Cabrera struggled, it must also be said that he stopped things well short of disaster. With Hicks and Romano both/each coming off of back-to-back appearances, it fell to Erik Swanson to both blow the save (it actually shouldn't even count if it's Devers) and, much more crucially, pick up the win. And just like that, not only is our season not finished after The Texas Sweep, but the Blue Jays somewhat stunningly sit in WC2! This took a couple of things breaking our way, of course: as twitter user "@glenjaminc" notes, "with Toronto's win and Texas's loss, that's ten straight games in Toronto's favor [all WC-relevant teams losing] since the sweep. Chances of that: ~ %0.09, or 1 in 1024." Stranger things have happened, but not stranger by much.

On to New York, then, to face a Yankees team that has won something like fifteen of their last twenty-one games since calling up some kids (good for the kids, I suppose). It's too late for the Yankees to actually make a run towards the playoffs, but it's not at all too late to mess up our own. We must remain vigilant, probably.

KS

2023 Game One-Hundred-Forty-Nine: Blue Jays 4, Red Sox 3 (F/13)

 

not pictured (and yet crucial): Infield-hit Whit

Between Vladdy's third home run in as many days to put the Blue Jays on the board in the seventh, and Vladdy's homeward scurry on Whit Merrifield's swinging bunt of an infield single to win it the thirteenth (the thirteenth!), an awful lot happened, some of it baffling, much of it thrilling. The emotional highpoints, from the perspective of a Blue Jays partisan, were surely Daulton Varsho's ninth-inning triple lined directly at and low-key (yet disastrously) misplayed by promising Red Sox centre-fielder Ceddanne Rafaela, scoring Cavan Biggio to send the game into extra innings; and, once there, Jordan Romano's pair of hitless innings (the only runner to reach was the intentionally-walked Rafael Devers, and honestly they should probably just do that four times a game [emotionally]). Other things ruled as well! And yet these happenings stood out amidst the ruling. What's more, everybody else keeps losing! Seattle, Texas, Houston—you name it! It's probably more important that Houston lose than anybody else, actually, as that is the lone relevant team the Blue Jays actually hold a tiebreaker over. If the Blue Jays finish with the same record as the Astros, they are quite simply in, regardless of what happens with the Mariners and/or Rangers. But nobody is talking about this! At least not on the broadcasts! Or maybe they are but I missed it! This game was over four hours long and there were for sure parts I did not see!

KS

2023 Game One-Hundred-Forty-Eight: Blue Jays 3, Red Sox 0

 

Vladdy: got another one

Seven shutout innings from José Berríos (La Makina, they whispered), a three-run blast from Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (Go Vladdy, they exhorted), and one-two-three innings from both Hicks and Romano (up the Jordans, no one said, or would ever say), and that's about the size of it! Maybe Blue Jays baseball could be this simple? For a while? Like maybe a couple weeks? Okay, Blue Jays? Let's? Play ball? 

KS 

2023 Game One-Hundred-Forty-Seven: Rangers 9, Blue Jays 2

 

fair play to him

Hey: hey: at least it's over, right? Sure, the Blue Jays have been swept at home in a four-game September-series for the first time ever. And, yes, the Blue Jays minus-twenty-six run differential against the Rangers is their worst run differential in a four-game series in team history. And sure, beloved children's entertainer Raffi was indeed driven to dark reflections in reply to Hazel Mae tweets late into the night (it was much earlier in BC, I suppose). Only a fool would deny any of this. But maybe the weirdest thing about any of these strange and legitimately awful occurrences (in the baseball sense) is that they have somehow not ended the Blue Jays playoff hopes. With fifteen games to go, the Blue Jays find themselves a game-and-a-half behind the Mariners for WC3, two-and-a-half behind the Rangers for WC2 (having lost the season-series against both teams, you can effectively add a game with regard to each team). Got to admit I didn't see it coming! And yet, the Rangers and Mariners have seven games left against one another, which means there are seven days where the Blue Jays can game a full game on somebody with a win. You can't rule out that they might! At least a handful of times! It would seem that, gift-and-the-curse style(e), we are still in it, and it is likely to come down to the final weekend of the season. So I guess we'll just see. Red Sox in town for three! 

KS

2023 Game One-Hundred-Forty-Six: Rangers 10, Blue Jays 0

 

absolutely

Sure, why not! If you're going to score naught but a single run on your five hits, you might as well give up ten runs! Give up twenty! A thousand! It's all the same! Yusei Kikuchi, who has limited home runs remarkably in the last little while, gave up a couple here, and was tagged for six runs in his five innings, but, again, what's the difference. A grim state of affairs! It is impossible to like this! 

KS

2023 Game One-Hundred-Forty-Five: Rangers 6, Blue Jays 3

Hyun Jin Ryu: forlorn

It would be stolen valour for me to claim to have suffered through this one at all, as in truth I spent the evening teaching a well-received introductory judo class to a spirited group of young athletes instead, which is emotionally a very different situation. And yet it gave me no pleasure to catch the end of this one on the radio on the way home, as this result suggests pretty hard that we are going to have to win the next two to split the series.    

KS

2023 Game One-Hundred-Forty-Four: Rangers 10, Blue Jays 4

 

I too am haunted, Vladdy; I too (am [that])

With a score like this, one is inclined to say something like "10-4, good buddy!" except for how it is not good, and how the Texas Rangers are not my buddy (except for Marcus Semien, forever our pal). It was really the five-run seventh that was the difference here, you'd have to conclude, what with the grand slam yielded by the enigmatic Genesis Cabrera, but Chris Bassitt's five runs allowed in five-and-a-third didn't really start things off on the right foot, either. Not a great way to open a crucial four-game series!

KS

2023 Game One-Hundred-Forty-Three: Blue Jays 5, Royals 2

 

call Vladdy both Strunk and White because he is demonstrating elements of style

The one-hundred-loss Royals have exactly two (2 [II{ii}]) players that are concerning at all: A) ultra-fleet shortstop Bobby Witt Jr., who looks like he will end up with thirty home runs and forty-five stolen bases, give or take, in this, his second full major-league season (he drove in one of the two Royals runs Sunday with a ringing double [he scored the other one]), and 2) hard-throwing lefty Cole Ragans, who hadn't allowed a run since the middle of August, and who was totally cruising through five-and-two-thirds innings Sunday. But then Ragans, in a way that I at once welcomed and yet felt was no fun at all, came completely unglued after a stumbling wild pitch, and just lost himself out there: two more wild pitches followed consecutively, and before you knew it the Blue Jays had tied the game at two. Out of basic human empathy I hope Ragans is okay (emotionally, I mean [physically he seemed fine]); that was simply brutal in a way I have never quite seen before. The Blue Jays did not look back from there, as they say, and added a Keirmaier's home run and a couple more "insurance runs" which I welcomed hard once Jordan Romano's ninth got a little ticklish (it ended up fine!). 

And so the Blue Jays come out of this fifteen-game stretch against sub-.500 teams with a totally creditable record of 10-5, and, given the mixed returns from both the Texas Rangers and, as luck would have it, the Seattle Mariners, the Blue Jays return home for their big four-game series against Rangers not just in Wild Card 3, but having actually snuck into Wild Card 2. Who'd have thunk it! A split against the Rangers over these next four would probably be just fine, and anything more than that would put the Ranger is a really tough spot the rest of the way. This, I think, is probably what we should aim for? To do that? To them?

KS   

2023 Game One-Hundred-Forty-Two: Blue Jays 5, Royals 1

 

a cunning slide from the big man

Kevin Gausman can give up just two hits and a walk in eight terrific innings, and George Springer can have his first two-homer game of the whole season (so far! let's go!), but Vladdy will still be the star of the show, especially if he elects to utterly book it around the bases and score all the way from first on a Cavan Biggio double, which he totally did on this rad day. Even in a year where he has never really quite looked how you would hope Vladdy to look, exactly (home run derby aside, obviously), this is still very much his team, and it might come as a surprise to you (it did to me!) to be reminded that even with all of the recent call-ups from Buffalo, Vladdy is still the youngest player on the roster. This, to me, remains just wild.  

KS

2023 Game One-Hundred-Forty-One: Blue Jays 5, Royals 4

 

now pitching for the Blue Jays: Yusei Kikuchi but he's really tiny

A four-run seventh! That's one of the best kinds to have! And so much of it wouldn't have, had George Springer's two-strike, two-out "checked" swing been adjudged a swinging strike (its true identity). But, as it happened, Springer walked, Bo singled (hey he's back!), Vladdy ripped a double to the gap, Davis Schneider walked, and the super-clutch-thus-far Ernie Clement singled. Add that all up and you've got four! I felt great about it!

KS

2023 Game One-Hundred-Forty: Oakland 5, Blue Jays 2

 

congratulations, Davis Schneider, on posting the highest OPS
in MLB history through one's first twenty games (seems good!)

Sweeps remain hard to do! Hyun-Jin Ryu did his part, but Trevor Richards ran into trouble, and the bats didn't have a whole lot happening. So it goes: two series wins on the road against two poor teams, and the Blue Jays, aided mightily by the solid play of the Houston Astros and the continued slide of the Texas Rangers, find themselves heading home all comfers/cozers (relatively speaking) back in good old Wild Card 3 (arguably the best of the three! you get to go to Minnesota! we have discussed this!) for the first time in kind of a while. Wouldn't it be lovely to be more than a half-game ahead, though, by the time the Rangers roll into town next week? A weekend series against the Royals makes that feel possible, but, at the same time, the Rangers will be playing these same Athletics we are just now leaving, so there may not be gains to be had? Then let us forestall losses! Or endeavour to! 

KS

2023 Game One-Hundred-Thirty-Nine: Blue Jays 7, Athletics 1

 

The Mound Hound

I'll take as many of these as you can give me, in that sense that I will forever welcome eight terrific innings from Chris Bassitt, and seven runs on ten hits from the bats of Springer, Kirk, Keirmaier et al. Great! But throughout this lopsided affair I found myself reflecting, time and again, on the sad way of things in Oakland in recent years, but especially this year. The sadness of it all was heightened somehow by Bark at the Ballpark night, with all kinds of good dogs in A's colours here and there amongst the several (but not that several) thousand fans scattered throughout the vast, awful stadium that used to be a vast, totally fine stadium before it was ruined by a football team that doesn't play there anymore. I don't know. It was all too much. 

KS

2023 Game One-Hundred-Thirty-Eight: Blue Jays 6, Athletics 5 (F/10)

 

the beloved Tony Kemp

Although I am of course pleased with another win on the strength of late-inning heroics from call-ups and role players (excuse me: rôle players), what stood out to me most in this one was Oakland's crafty deployment of the speedy Esteury Ruiz as a pinch-runner in in the DH spot (Ruiz promptly stole two bases, and it wasn't even all that close). This is precisely how I made use of his skills in my most recent Baseball Mogul save! I felt a kinship!

KS

2023 Game One-Hundred-Thirty-Seven: Blue Jays 7, Rockies 5

 

Vladdy got one (and felt characteristically certain of it)

"My god jays just beat the Rockies please," wrote one of my baseball correspondents as this sometimes-worrying but ultimately quite satisfying conclusion to our time in Colorado took shape. It took a couple of late runs manufactured by guys like McCoy, Clement, and Horowitz to get it done—not the first few to come to mind when you think of the 2023 Toronto Blue Jays, but hey: thanks guys!

KS

2023 Game One-Hundred-Thirty-Six: Rockies 8, Blue Jays 7

 

max-effort Kuch

The Blue Jays put two across in the ninth, and got the tying run as far as third base, and yet it still felt doomed the whole time? Weird! There was much to overcome on this night, as Yusei Kikuchi was tagged for six runs—though, to be fair, only two were earned (the defense was . . . inexpert). It really would be swell to sweep teams that are as lowly as this year's lowly Rockies, but sweeps are tough; you have to be undisappointed when you are unable to sweep, or else you are going nearly the whole entire season disappointed, and that is way too long of a time to feel that way. 

KS

2023 Game One-Hundred-Thirty-Five: Blue Jays 13, Rockies 9

 

nice play, Davis Schneider

The final score here makes this one look a whole lot closer than it ever really was, and would have remained, had Chad Green not been just creamed for four runs in two-thirds of an inning in his first Major League appearance in really quite a long time. I bet John Schneider wasn't wild about bringing Jordan Romano in for a single, game-ending out, but Jordan Romano was probably fairly psyched about it (he certainly seemed psyched). Coors Field! The ball carries! Plus the park is gigantic so it is doubles and triples all over. Fun!

KS

2023 Game One-Hundred-Thirty-Four: Blue Jays 7, Nationals 0

 

okay see now "hey Kirky rip a double of the wall please"
is an appropriate thing to ask Alejandro Kirk to do

A welcome laugher! Nary a homer, either, as the Blue Jays put up their seven runs, which meant just a tonne of neat hits and the great fun of dashing around the bases: a two-run Alejandro Kirk double following a Davis Schneider/Vladimir Guerrero double-steal is just about as good as it gets! Chris Bassitt only struck out three, but allowed just three hits and a walk over his eight full innings, which obviously you will take every time. And so while it is not ideal to enter September outside of any (and indeed each) of the three wild-card spots, we do head to Colorado to play the lowly Rockies just two-and-a-half games behind the still-struggling Texas Rangers, who have a weekend series against the totally-decent Minnesota Twins. The Astros, who it would also be neat to catch, are a further game ahead, and play the completely finished Yankees, so probably no help there? Regardless, we've got the Rockies, the poor A's, and the Royals over the next nine, which makes this not just "go time", but, like, Mandelbaum-level "go time."     

KS 

2023 Game One-Hundred-Thirty-Three: Nationals 5, Blue Jays 4

 

Kirk himself is spotless as a lamb in all of this

It is not second-guessing to be like man oh man I do not understand why John Schneider did not pinch-run for DH Alejandro Kirk as he stood at third base with one out in the eighth inning of a two-run game in a wildcard playoff race as September draws near oh no he has been thrown out at the plate on a flyball to medium-depth CF; everybody was first guessing it! There is extensive evidence of this through both internet postings (timestamped) and the SMS text messages exchanged between pals (no less timestamped)! It was a close enough play (Kirk, ever hustling, is blameless in this) that literally any other player on the roster would have made it home safely! If Kirk had been catching, and pinch-running for him would have meant sliding Danny Jansen out of the DH spot, thus losing the DH spot the rest of the way, who cares? It's the eighth! You just pinch hit! But that isn't even what he had to think about; you can (and should!) always embrace the freedoms afforded by the DH: endless substitution with no defensive consequence! Schneider's post-game explanation that he would have pinch-run for Kirk had they been trailing not by two but by just one (what?) but that he needed to keep Kirk's bat in the lineup in case he came up again (like in the eleventh?) was just brutal. Pushing across a single run in a ninth-inning that the Nats seemed content to totally just hand to us (bases loaded, nobody out) was even worse. That's two out of three games with season-worst vibes, and the teams we need to catch are pulling away. The realm harshens by the day!

KS

2023 Game One-Hundred-Thirty-Two: Blue Jays 6, Nationals 3

 

pleased: to have doubled

My keen analytics suggest that the four-run second inning was the key in this one, and, further, that Vladdy's two-run double was itself key within that selfsame four-run second. Kevin Gausman's serviceable five-innings and a clean run from Richards, Cabrera, and Hicks didn't hurt either! Have the vibes been totally restored from Sunday afternoon's utter vibes debacle? Probably not, and yet you can call me a Buffalo Bisons starting pitcher being taken out of the game because I am minorly relieved (thank you).

KS