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