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| bring it on in, Tyler Heineman; bring it on in |
It was easy to feel relatively okay heading into last weekend's series in Yankee Stadium, given that there was no possible result in that three-game set that could see the Blue Jays unseated as AL East leaders heading into the season's final weeks. And yet! It sure would have been a drag to just get dragged, would it not? Have been? How fortuitous, then, that we could set even that possibility aside with so thorough a 7-1 Friday night drubbing that, in that very drubbing, the Blue Jays chased young Yankees starter Cam Schlittler (Buck Martinez's pronunciations did not disappoint) in just the second inning. That the Blue Jays dropped the next two closely contested close contests was no great matter, even if the two-game lead with which they departed New York was not, strictly speaking, enormous. The greater loss, for sure, is that of Bo Bichette, who, correctly sent home on a fly ball to right just ahead of a looming and obvious rain delay Saturday afternoon, slid awkwardly into the catcher's shin guard, and sliced and sprained his whole deal down there. What a rough couple of seasons it has been for Bo Bichette's poor knees: it is no wonder that his once exquisite baserunning has fallen off a cliff (he is a little slower than Vladdy now, which I did not see coming) and his range at short has been hampered. But his bat will be sorely missed, I'm sure, over this stint on the ten-day IL. Maybe he will benefit from just the general rest, this far into the long season? And then rake all October? (On the field of play, is my hope, rather than the field of his yard.)
Last night's game, though, was really something. Before my commitments with regard to the exquisite art of 講道館 柔道 Kōdōkan Jūdō took me away after the top of the first, I did manage to both see and lament the two-run shot the Astros' Carlos Correa visited upon Shane Bieber; I lamented further when I put the game on the radio after the gym and learned that, aside from a lone Springer dinger in the sixth, there was really nothing doing, 3-1 Astros late. At least the Tigers had gone up big in New York, I consoled myself, and every day that we can just hold fast brings us one day closer to the AL East title, I could be heard to remark (internally). Imagine, then, my delight, when the Blue Jays put together a Kirk walk, Clement single, Schneider walk, IKF two-run single (IKF! he's back!) bottom of the ninth to send it to extras, whereupon Vladdy made a throw across the diamond to nail Altuve (in his rôle as Manfred Man) with a throw I'm convinced no other first baseman in the league even attempts, let alone makes, before he himself—that self-same Vladdy!—legged out an infield hit in the bottom of the tenth ahead of Tyler Heineman's walk-off fielder's-choice grounder towards a helpless and hapless Christian Walker ten feet off first. Heineman ran through the bag, exultant, and instead of maybe heading towards home plate, where Myles Straw had slid in just ahead of the throw, went straight to Vladdy at second (he had been running on the pitch!) for just a great big hug of a great big hug. I'm not sure by what process Heineman was unshirted before he got to Hazel Mae for the postgame interview alongside Isiah Kiner-Falefa, but in the end he was as shirtless as anyone has ever been; it was a shirtlessness so profound that one could not but ponder on it.
So here we are, three games up on both New York and Boston—functionally four, in each case, having won the season series against both—with now eighteen to go, and things seem as plausible as ever, or at least as plausible as they've seemed at any point in these last ten years. This has all been, and continues to be, just wonderful. Lest we get too far ahead of ourselves, I will note, too, that even with the top non-playoff team, the Texas Rangers, low-key surging, the Blue Jays should still be safe for at least the final Wild Card spot with literally two or three more wins this season, literally two or three out of the eighteen games that remain. In the spring, I would have totally signed up for an eighty-six-win, final-wild-card-spot 2025 season, and even now I would welcome it, even amidst the sheer madness of the kind of collapse it would take the rest of the way for us to end up with only that. I actually think I may have just talked myself into wondering pretty hard what that would be like? Almost to the point of wanting it to happen, a little? I will push those strange thoughts to the side, though, and stay focused on the task at hand. We've all got to do our part down the stretch, guys.
KS
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