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The tying run came to the plate (in the sense of "being at bat") with two outs in the top of the ninth inning, embodied in the eager person of George Springer, who ripped a screamer just to the right of first baseman Donavan Solano. Solano, who'd come on as a pinch hitter earlier, but had struck around after, made a nice little play on it, and that was that: Twins 3, Blue Jays 1. Honestly I did not mind any of this quite like you might think? It was discouraging, certainly, that Kevin Gausman struggled early, and allowed two home runs to only-recently-uninjured rookie masher Royce Lewis in the first three innings, while all and sundry (I think I identify as "sundry" more than "all" in this instance, but I'm sure I've been both) speculated as to whether or not the Twins did indeed have something on Gausman's splitter. The extraordinarily great Minnesota crowd roared whenever a Twin laid off of a low pitch, which I'm sure was a lot of fun for them (they have suffered, and have earned whatever rewards they may gather). It was both a drag and a surprise that Gausman went only four innings, and I'm sure he would be the first to tell you that things did not go well, or at all like he'd hoped, but at the end of the day, Kevin Gausman threw two centre-cut fastballs that we did not enjoy; it's not like he walked the world, or anything truly agonizing like that. Nobody wanted to see the bullpen in action that early (unless it was to Unleash the Kooch [which did not happen]), but it must be said that every move that John Schneider made in that regard felt correct in the moment, and was then justified immediately, as every reliever turned in more of the great work we have come to expect of them over the long season: Swanson, Mayza, Green, the enigmatic (and fired up) Genesis Cabrera (it is all part of his ever-deepening enigma), and Jordan Hicks allowed nary a run between them. Great job, guys! That was a lot of innings! As to the bats: well, it would have really been something had Matt Chapman's inning-ending fly ball to the wall with two runners on somehow eluded the leaping Michael A. Taylor; I'll sure say that! Bo and Keirmaier were the only Blue Jays with two hits (Bo scored the lone run; Keirmaier knocked him in), though Vladdy doubled in the eighth and Chapman singled, too (that was earlier). The play that is getting the most attention, for what I feel are the wrong reasons, saw Bo thrown out at the plate to end the third as he scurried homeward on a Keirmaier chopper that pulled third baseman Jorge Polanco out of position, leaving the ball in what seemed like no man's land. To me, it was a good, smart, aggressive play from a player who is all three of those things, but an unlikely and quite frankly perfect play from Carlos Correa—who, like young Royce Lewis, just came off the injured list—cut Bo down at home. Although I have not actively sought anything like this out, a good deal of criticism of Bichette's decision has nevertheless appeared before me, and every bit of it is silly. Cheers to Carlos Correa, who made a great play; and to Pablo Lopez, who pitched ably into the sixth; and to the Minnesota fans, who created a perfect playoff atmosphere. I just don't feel like the Blue Jays blew this one even a little? I feel like they played a good baseball game against a good baseball team and lost the good baseball game? It's not what you want to see, but it's hard to feel bad about it.
And so it falls to José Berrios and a cast of potentially everyone (John Schneider has said that Kevin Gausman is the only player unavailable today) to see if we can keep the series and indeed the season going a little longer. Sonny Gray is every bit as good as Pablo Lopez, I think you'd have to say, so it will be a tall task, but honestly the boys put together some really nice at-bats yesterday. A few more like that, and we're bound to put at least a couple runs on the board, and with all hands on deck, that might be all we need?
KS
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