2024 Games Seventy-Five, Seventy-Six, and Seventy-Seven: Guardians 7, Blue Jays 1; Guardians 6, Blue Jays 3; Guardians 6, Blue Jays 5

 

oh I hear you loud and clear, Yusei Kikuchi

It is with more relief than sadness that I note that this weekend was when I stopped worrying about the Blue Jays' 2024 season: in terms of making a run at the postseason, or even a run at run at the postseason, it is now pretty much a wrap (and in June, no less!). This is certainly not an unfamiliar place to be as a baseball fan in general, or a Blue Jays fan in particular, but these last few years have of course been very different: the Blue Jays have played "meaningful" games (understanding that in the broader context there is of course no such thing [or/also that in the broader broader context, perhaps everything is such things?]) literally every day from the weird (and yet crucial) 2020 season through the end of 2023. With the Blue Jays now in a truly brutal and fairly hopeless slide, there has been much chatter about how ineptly the team has been constructed, and how everybody in charge needs to go, and all that sort of thing, and hey maybe so (there comes a time), but over the last four seasons before this still-unfolding disaster, the Blue Jays have played .556 baseball, which is exactly a ninety-win pace, and have made the playoffs three times. That's about as good as it gets! And I would remind you that, for as much fun as was had in 2015 and 2016, these last few years have been the first time the Blue Jays have been this good for this long in thirty years. Not that they are good now, obviously; now they are in fact quite bad, and this particular series in Cleveland felt legitimately cursed. How can you get swept while hitting eight home runs? That's wild! How do you throw seventy pitches in a single inning? That is perhaps even wilder! (Apparently it hadn't happened to anybody in like ten years.) But it's all fine. There's still baseball on. It'll be nice.

KS   

2024 Games Seventy-Two, Seventy-Three, and Seventy-Four: Red Sox 7, Blue Jays 3; Red Sox 4, Blue Jays 3; Red Sox 7, Blue Jays 3

 

hey man looking sharp

The bad news is the Blue Jays were swept at home at the very moment they seemed poised—a little poised? lightly poised?—to finally get back to .500 with (maybe? possibly?) a series win against the beatable Red Sox, and it is truly a worrisome drag that they did not; but the good news is that Vladdy's new haircut is pretty good! The braids were often tremendous, no question, but at a certain point it's just time for a change, you know? My initial analysis is that short-haired Vladdy looks even more like his father, even though his father, as you will no doubt recall, often wore braids himself. Can't explain it!

KS  

2024 Games Sixty-Nine, Seventy, and Seventy-One: Guardians 3, Blue Jays 1; Blue Jays 5, Guardians 0; Blue Jays 7, Guardians 6

 

the slam is grand

After a dismal three-hit performance Friday, and a rousing romp of a bullpen game on Saturday (I think they're neat!), Daulton Varsho's Father's Day grand-slam gave the Blue Jays just barely enough to withstand a ninth-inning meltdown and injury to Yimi Garcia. But will I? Be able to withstand it? I have my doubts! The three best arms in the Blue Jays' pen—Romano, Swanson, and our guy Yimi—are all down, which I suppose leaves the ticklish bits to Chad Green, which would normally sound like a fine proposition, but for his various tribulations this year. Things continue to go really quite poorly, even as the Blue Jays manage a series win against a much better team, and yet despite these many fardels we must apparently bear, here we sit just a single game below .500 (despite a genuinely appalling run differential), and really just one team separating us from the Wild Card spots: the very Boston Red Sox who are in town next. It would take a series sweep to move past them, which is obviously asking a lot, but how about series win, to sidle right up alongside? Maybe one of those? To do that?

KS 

2024 Games Sixty-Six through Sixty-Eight: Brewers 3, Blue Jays 1; Blue Jays 3, Brewers 0; Brewers 5, Blue Jays 4

 

"spring" and a miss? are people saying this?

It is getting harder and harder to overlook the fact that, nearly halfway into the season, George Springer has been among the worst batters in either league (by just about any metric you please), especially when he is the only one having a perfectly non-competitive at-bat in what was otherwise a big comeback ninth inning that fell just short in the rubber match of a three-game series against a strong Brewers team. Let me premise this next part by acknowledging that I am in no way "a swing guy" in the mechanical sense beyond being able to teach the absolute fundamentals to kids (hey okay nice cut!), but it looks to be as simple as this: the bat speed just isn't there anymore, is it? It happens to everybody eventually, and it seems to have happened to George Springer now, with two years left on his massive contract after this one. Friends, it is just brutal, which Springer himself freely admits, saying he realizes he is "not living up to his end of the bargain." In slight recognition of this, Springer has been dropped from the leadoff spot (that's good), but is still usually batting like fifth (that's bad), instead of the two best spots for him right now, which would be either "ninth" or "rarely." He is still playing a good right field, and obviously trying super hard, but man oh man.  

KS   

2024 Games Sixty-Three through Sixty-Five: Athletics 2, Blue Jays 1; Blue Jays 7, Athletics 0; Blue Jays 6, Athletics 4 (F/10)

 

feelin' fine

On Friday night, the very first pitch thrown by the Blue Jays' bullpen resulted in a walk-off home run (making a fine hash of Chris Bassitt's best start), so Kevin Gausman wisely elected to pitch a complete-game shutout on Saturday. Great call, man! Sunday's game was one in which it felt like a million things happened on a perfect afternoon, but it was Isiah Kiner-Falefa's bases-clearing double in the tenth that left the greatest impression (and yet could it even have arisen had Varsho not stolen third, to be sac-flied in by Davis Schneider to tie it a little earlier?). A sweep would have been fantastic, obviously, but two-out-of-three leaves us, improbably, just a game under .500 and—you are seriously not going to believe this—just two games out of a Wild Card spot. What? For real? Yes! I assure you! I have checked a bunch of times! Milwaukee is our next stop, and they've been really, so this might not be super fun, but it does give us a chance to check in with the great Bob Uecker on the radio. I should also note that this weekend was the last time the Blue Jays are ever going to play the Athletics in Oakland, and that is a truly miserable thing. The Blue Jays' broadcast, led by Dan Shulman, talked about it a lot over the course of all three days, and appropriately mournfully, with great sympathy towards the faultless Oakland fans. The crowds were small this weekend—how could they not be?—but they were loud and fun and loved baseball. I am super sad for them. 

KS 

2024 Games Fifty-Nine through Sixty-Two: Orioles 7, Blue Jays 2; Orioles 10, Blue Jays 1; Blue Jays 3, Orioles 2; Blue Jays 6, Orioles 5

 

Bo is essentially wearing shorts at this point 

A four-game split in the truest sense, in that the first two games had me feeling like Donald Sutherland after last year's playoffs, while the last two suggested to me that we are possibly still in this thing (in the broadest possible sense)? The hapless Blue Jays of the first two games bore almost no resemblance to the steely guys who emerged in the final two, aside from how Vladdy homered for both. Sure hope everybody enjoys bimodal distribution!

KS 

2024 Games Fifty-Six, Fifty-Seven, and Fifty-Eight: Blue Jays 5, Pirates 3 (F/14); Pirates 8, Blue Jays 1; Blue Jays 5, Pirates 4

 

night mode

Yusei Kikuchi's first bad start in what seems like forever was genuinely hurtful (to Yusei, visibly, and to me, too), but aside from that, what a weekend! Friday night's fourteenth-inning (double "Okay Blue Jays"!) Davis Schneider walk-off home run was for sure the highest of lights, but Sunday's win was a real honey, too, with a marvelous catch in centre field from Daulton Varsho, whose acclaim as baseball's best outfielder is rightly growing. The "Night Mode" City Connect jerseys, which débuted Friday, are really pretty great, as far as City Connect jerseys go: the Padres are in a class of their own (like, amongst all garments), but after that, I really think the Blue Jays ones are as good as any, and quite a bit better than most? And how many others put you in mind of the "City Night" stage of Yu Suzuki's Hang-On, particular in the Sega Master System port? Precious few! The weekend's other big development, and this really is a wonderful, marvelous thing, is that Vladdy got a start at third base, his first since 2019. When he fielded the ball, and made a play, everybody was so happy (Vladdy himself tried to play it cool, but we knew; we knew). In order to get Turner (who is not really hitting) and Vogelbach (who is) in the lineup more often, it makes all the sense in the world to get Vladdy some starts at third, so there is a rational reason to do it, but to me this really has to be considered a matter of the heart.

KS

2024 Games Fifty-Three through Fifty-Five: Blue Jays 5, White Sox 1; Blue Jays 7, White Sox 2; Blue Jays 3, White Sox 1

 

the unsung Trevor Richards

Guys, guys, guys: we are probably so back. Timely hitting! Palpable dingers! Further excellent pitching! All of these things together for three consecutive games! The only real hiccup, I guess you would have to concede, is that Alek Manoah, who seemed totally back on track, left in the second inning of his start with what appears to be a fairly significant arm injury. Medium-to-long-term, that is a pretty big problem for us, but in the shortest of short terms, it gave Trevor Richards a chance to shine (what a handy fellow, that Trevor Richards, especially if you enjoy changeups). I will concede that all of this good baseball was played against the league-worst Chicago White Sox, who have only recently pulled up slightly from an historically bad start to the season, and so it may be reasonable to remain cautious about our fortunes, but at the same time, the Blue Jays won three games this series, and it is irrefutable that this is literally the maximum "of games" that anyone could have won under these circumstances (of playing three of them). Let's go.

KS