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| at least Vladdy got one (great job as always, Vladdy; you're the best) |
Should it be Brandon Little to whom we extend our fellow feeling this day, given that he was brought in to face an inning rich with lefties, and allowed home runs to two of them, on what may well prove to be his last appearance before being sent down to Buffalo to figure things out (should that be available to his practice)? Or should it mostly be Tyler Heineman, who not only made the third out (that's all the out they give you in any one inning, which is honestly something we might want to revisit) of a potentially game-changing inning trying to get to third with two out (you will recall that it is nearly meaningless to be on third with two out rather than to be at second with that same number of outs [two]) and—and this is the part that really tears it—Vladimir Guerrero Jr. on deck? Vladdy, who'd homered in his last at bat, is reported to have hit the indoor batting cages no more than fifteen minutes after the conclusion of the previous day's disappointing game, trying to fix whatever it was in his swing that was limiting him to only getting on base a little less than half the time. And sure enough, he got that one today, a true blast to left-centre off of former Blue Jay Anthony Kay, back in the bigs after a several-year stint in Japan that was apparently quite kind to him (though he no longer wears glasses on the field, which saddens me a little). That put the Blue Jays up 2-1 in the sixth, the homer did, but it was the bottom of that same inning that saw Brandon Little just totally cooked by those lefties aforementioned, the very guys he is specifically there to go uncooked by (he is there to ensure everything remains raw, in a sense). Anyway, Heineman's Vladdy's-on-deck-please-no gaffe ended the seventh, and then a ball he just totally sailed in what should have been an inning-ending pickle in the eighth (but instead produced two runs! a two-run pickle!) really settled the matter: for Tyler Heineman, much like Brandon Little, this was just a brutal day at work.
Unlike Little, who we probably won't be seeing all that much of in the next while (mere speculation on my part, but I would be surprised if Adam Macko or somebody isn't up as a new bullpen lefty for a bit), Heineman will be front and centre, given the news about Alejandro Kirk's thumb: it was dislocated, so they popped it back in after the game, x-rayed it, and, yep, sure enough, that's a thumb that's broken, mister. For now, he's just on the ten-day injury list, but they don't yet know if it'll need surgery or what, so while it is already a bad scene, it could prove to be a far worse one pretty soon.
It's Eric Lauer on the mound tomorrow (today it was Mason Fluharty as an opener ahead of Lazaro Estrado, by the way, and that was all at least totally fine, bordering on really good), and I enjoy his work, but I do not feel that things have gone well in Chicago so far, and I worry that this may continue to be the case tomorrow, too. Prove me wrong, guys! Then it's back home to face the Dodgers, haha!
KS
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