Blue Jays 2, Rays 0; Blue Jays 2, Rays 1; Rays 5, Blue Jays 4; Rays 9, Blue Jays 4: You Know What This Was Actually Pretty Neat

slid right into his butt, like right into it

Great starts from Carlos Villanueva and Brandon Morrow, back-to-back games ending with dudes thrown out at the plate, and tight, low-scoring affairs that could totally have gone either way, I mean, shoot, that sounds pretty awesome, does it not? And indeed it was! Were it not for Ricky Romero getting absolutely pasted beyond all recognition in the series finale on Sunday afternoon -- 1 IP, 8 H, 7 R, 7 ER, 1 BB, 0 K, 1 HR -- this would have been nothing but good times, man, nothing at all. But yeah, the Romero start, his worst ever, and pretty much the worst you could ever possibly see, took a little bit of the shine off an otherwise excellent weekend of baseball, the Blue Jays series I have enjoyed most in a long time (because I kind of whiffed on the Yankees series, to be honest). 

I would like to point out, in case you had not noticed which is entirely possible, that E5 is now up to 37 HR, which is utterly ridiculous. Not that it would have made that much difference to the shape of the season or anything, but wouldn't it have been cool if Jose Bautista's wrist hadn't exploded and both these awesome dudes hit forty-plus dingers? Boy. Boy.

KS

Indians 1, Blue Jays 0: Well This is Fucking Great

blast

Now that Ricky Romero has finally got it figured out, the bats have gone cold for him, which is, as I have already mentioned above, fucking great. Another blow against pitcher wins/losses, true, but at what cost? 


Also, and shame on me for not mentioning this previously, but good for E5; that is a low-risk contract for the Blue Jays but a hell of a lot of money for a dude who sure stuck it out despite being set up to fail for most of his major league career. Do not ask Edwin Encarnacion to throw the baseball; do not ask it of him. 


KS

Blue Jays 7, Angels 5: Adam Lind, Home Run Hero

home run hero adam lind amidst several lessers

I am not going to act like I thought Adam Lind had even a little bit more to give, even after he tore it up in Triple A, which, I mean, he'd better have torn it up in Triple A, as I may well have said at the time (I am unwilling to check). So yeah it came as a full-on surprise to me that Lind jacked not one but two entirely credible dingers last night, leading the Blue Jays to victory with his mighty wallops. Other cool things that happened twice last night include Rajai Davis stealing two bases, which is way less surprising than Rajai getting on, because on those rare occasions he reaches he just takes bases at will man he just straight up takes them. It is always somewhat more surprising when E5 swipes a couple, but swipe them he did! All of these cool things happened in support of the totally useful Carlos Villanueva, who just goes out and pitches completely OK-ly in whatever role he's cast in, and just like that, the Blue Jays did not make me sad on this night. That's all it took: all of those many things.


KS

Red Sox 5, Blue Jays 1; Red Sox 10, Blue Jays 4: I totally got sneak-day-gamed today

what's up, sad guys?

I am an almost preternaturally with-it and together guy so imagine my surprised when I learned that a day game happened without my knowing about it even faintly. What did I miss? Ricky Romero getting absolutely pounded for only his second loss of the year, for starters. He has been less than himself for a while now so this is not shocking, but he really did get lit up, and lasted a few. However! E5 belted his twenty-second, and Jose Bautista his majors-leading twenty-fifth. Bautista, who is still only hitting .237, is now hovering around the AL top ten in OPS, because he is still walking a ton and yeah those homers but he is hitting like no doubles, which is really weird: he's at nine, and no triples, actually. So it is like, here is a dude with an OPS made up almost entirely of walks and home runs. The dream of the nineties!


Oh yeah the previous night the Blue Jays lost unremarkably by a score of 5-1, and I have no idea who is pitching any of the games until it's Romero again, honestly.


KS

Blue Jays 5, Red Sox 1: It is All Fun And Games Until E5 Gets Plunked on the Hands

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE 5

I should have been free to enjoy Daniel Bard's historically bad six-walk, two-hit-batsmen-in-less-than-two-innings outing -- the first since 1918! -- but I was not, exactly, because E5, who is a motherfucking monsters this year, got hit on the hands, which is the worst. Apparently he is making the trip to Chicago, though, and it is just all sore, rather than all injured, so there you go. Did you know that young Drew Hutchinson put in a fine seven-inning outing? And that, holy cow, Jose Bautista is up to fourteen dingers at this point despite still not really being himself? Mostly though I am glad that the sweep was averted because sweeps suck one's life force, a little.


KS

Blue Jays 4, Orioles 1: Gladness Brooms

dingerz for days

I was totally in and out with last night's game, and yet I was present for all for Blue Jays solo home runs: E5 (again!), Rajai (again!), Lawrie, and Rasmus. I mention this because I found it awesome. Less awesome is that Brandon Morrow, who pitched well, had to leave the game after getting smoked by a batted ball in the seventh, but it is a dangereuse game we play is it not mon chéri?


Hey also, have you noticed that the AL East is utterly nuts? Like, here it is:

It's not just me, right? That is legitimately nuts, isn't it? 


KS

Blue Jays 6, Orioles 2: The Hope Here is that Maybe the Orioles are Still Just the Orioles

Edwin Encarnacion and Jose Bautista reject your suggestion that this looks goofy

I know they're in first place almost fifty games into the season, but I have not been shook for even a second by the Orioles so far this year. I have seen very little evidence to suggest that they are even going to be all that OK by the end of the year, let alone stick around at the top of the AL East. I am taking last night's 6-2 Blue Jays win as confirmation that I am right about this and probably also about everything else ever, too. Drew Hutchinson put in a heck of an effort of seven solid, scoreless innings, including one weird one where he allowed three walks and a hit, but no runs (good job picking a dude of second, Jeff Mathis!). Kelly Johnson returned from a hamstring injury, and went 3-4 with a double and a home run, but is not all the way better, and Yunel Escobar is having groin issues, so all of that is a drag, but there are options. There are things. Also, look at this rad .gif I have lifted from DJF that shows a dude really minding that he missed catching E5's sixteenth yeah sixteenth dinger of the year in circumstances that make the miss completely inexcusable (by which I mean he was wearing a glove):

That is a play that has to be made.


KS

Rangers 14, Blue Jays 3: Brandon Morrow Made This One Easy

well I mean what are you going to do

Friday night I was like, you know what, I really want to watch a bunch of old karate movies tonight, but the Blue Jays game just started, let's see how that's going. I did, and soon noticed that Brandon Morrow had given up six runs and didn't even get out of the first inning, so the course of my night became clear! E5's fifteenth home run of the season should be noted, but that is all I choose to note from this game notable only for Morrow, who has been awesome this year, sucking this time out, and for Cruz's eight runs batted in, which you sure don't see everyday. 


KS 

Blue Jays 8, Yankees 1: An Intoxicating Admixture of Dingerz and Smoke

yussssssss

Dingerz dung by: J. P. Arencibia, E5, Joseph Batstista, Kelly Johnson


Smoke thrown by: Kyle Drabek


Intoxicating admixture of the above imbibed by: your faithful correspondent


KS

Twins 7, Blue Jays 6: At Least They Got It In, I Guess

baseball (above)

After a two-hour rain delay, Kyle Drabek (and the 'pen!) got slapped around to the tune of seven runs against a pretty awful lineup, but I have chosen to focus on the positive, which is to say: Jose Bautista's two dingers; E5's lone dinger; and the way the MLB guy doing the video recap of the game actually referred to Encarnacion as "E5" in the highlight package. These are all good things, except for how the pitching was, on this rainy night, if not an utter butt, then at least somewhat buttesque.


KS

Blue Jays 5, Athletics 2: Now That Wasn't That Hard, Was it

lovin' that stride

All it took was an overdue demotion of the basically reprehensible (baseballically, I mean) Adam Lind -- a man who is a career 2.4 WAR player, guys/ladies -- to the eighth spot in the lineup and a promotion of my main man Casey Janssen to the closer spot (a made-up spot that should be abolished in my view because I am enlightened in that regard) and there you have it, a nice and easy 5-2 win in which Brandon Morrow was cool and Lind (and Arencibia and E5) homered and Janssen pitched a still-as-deepest-sleep ninth and we are golden. That's the way, fellows!


Did you know that the Blue Jays are actually second in the AL in run differential this year, behind only the mighty Texas Rangers? Isn't that awesome? No doubt, there have been areas of concern: too many blown saves (a stat that I of course despise; see earlier parenthetical remark re: my enlightenment), some troubling outings from Kyle Drabek, from whom we had smokey expectations (indeed, the smokiest), and Jose Bautista not at all doing what we have come to expect him to do. Also have I mentioned that Adam Lind is wretched? But E5 has been a beast, Kelly Johnson has been really good, and the starting pitching has been, on the whole, as good as you could have hoped, really. With four games against the pitiably lowly Minnesota Twins and so a chance to really put some wins together here before some big games with Tampa and New York, I remain wildly optimistic about what this season could bring! Seriously I do! Also my wife got me a new fitted hat for my birthday! How is that for excitement?  Tonight my friend was like, "Hey did you get that for your birthday?" and I was like "Yeah!" 


AND TODAY THE BLUE JAYS SIGNED VLADIMIR GUERRERO! On my birthday! Were you aware that every time I play Baseball Mogul, like every time, I move heaven and earth to get Vladimir Guerrero on my team? Of course you were not aware of that, but that doesn't make it any less true. Like, if I were running the IRL Toronto Blue Jays right now, this is absolutely something I would have done. Immediately. Actually maybe instead of feeling amazingly about Alex Anthopolous for making this happen, maybe I should be furious he didn't do it sooner? Anyway: come to me Vladi. Come to me.


KS  

Blue Jays 8, Rangers 7; Blue Jays 11, Rangers 5: Hooray, and yet Dang

meathead jubilation

When you find out that a game you bailed on ended with a walk-off home run for the good guys, what can you do but feel like the merest fool? Then, the next day, when you do not realize the series is wrapping up with a day game because you inexplicably do not keep a 2012 pocket schedule on you at all times, you are left feeling even worse. The Rangers are the best team in baseball, and the Blue Jays just took a glorious two out of three from them, and I missed all the best parts. I need to get way better at watching baseball. 


KS

Rangers 4, Blue Jays 1: Yu Darvish: Good Pitcher

ippon

Even before last night, I knew it would have been awesome had the Blue Jays actually won the auction for Yu Darvish, so imagine how I feel now! Let's hear it for E5, though, who hit another home run. That guy, man. The problem was just how he was being used; the problem was never him, except for when it actually was him, kind of.


KS

Blue Jays 7, Mariners 2: E5 again? Aw yeah, again and again.

two rad guys, one of whom is currently playing radly

Another home run? And a stolen base? Even if it was just on the tail end of a double steal, I don't care: E5 is cold killing it, and we should all embrace and celebrate him. Hey, you know who else homered? Back-up-catcher-who-can't-hit Jeff Mathis, who has been raking on those rare occasions he actually gets to play. Good for him! Good for us all! I am just excited generally right now, but I am particularly excited about my main man Henderson Alvarez, who allowed but a solitary run in his six innings today. Not excited about: Francisco Cordero, who needs to settle down and not be bad at pitching, in this observer's view. 

Tomorrow night is Kyle Drabek vs. Yu Darvish! Whose smoke shall be smokiest? Tune in! 


Also I wanted to mention that I caught a bunch of the Padres/Giants the other night as the MLB.tv free game of the day, and woah did it look awesome on my computer because that ballpark is the best and also woah did it sound awesome on my computer because John Miller is the best. And Lincecum pitched well! Well, everybody did, but the Padres got burnt on a bad call at first and that was the game, pretty much. 


Baseball,


KS

Blue Jays 7, Mariners 0: E5 BABY YEEEEAH

mostly they are happy they look so fresh in those new uniforms

A very good way to break an especially depressing four-game losing streak is for Brandon Morrow to pitch six innings, striking out nine and walking nary a dude, and for E5 to hit an opposite-field grand slam, complete with cocky bat flip, to cap off a 7-0 drubbing on a Saturday afternoon. This is so much more like it, you have no idea. 


DO IT EDWIN DO IT.

Edwin, doing it

KS

Blue Jays 9, Orioles 2: Much, Much More Like It

yeah man just do this instead of trying to steal home on an 0-2 pitch
with two away and the bases loaded and Jose Bautista at the dish

Kyle Drabek, thrower of smoke! Brett Lawrie and E5, belters of dingers! Kevin Gregg, loathsome ex-Blue Jay who once exhibited both the audacity and the temerity to argue with Cito on-field after being pulled for being horrible, lit up for three runs as part of a seven-run bat-around sixth! Yes sir, this one pretty much had it all, if you are me. What's next for these first-place (also "these 5-4," but work with me here) Blue Jays, you ask? Well, first an off day, which is unacceptable, but after that it is the Rays for three! 


That could be neat!

KS

Blue Jays 4, Angels 3: Now That is How You Close The Season at Home

There she goes.

Trailing 3-1 in the seventh despite another solid start by young Henderson Alvarez, the Blue Jays at last got down to biznass: Eric Thames, who Alan Ashby could not possibly love more, led off the inning with his twelfth home run of the season, knocking Ervin Santana out of the game. Jose Bautista walked (3-4, 2 BB, 2 standing ovations complete with chants of "M-V-P"), and Adam Lind ripped one off of Mark Trumbo at first. What could have been a double play was instead a ball that skittered into centre field, which allowed Bautista to reach third, and Lind to totally evade the tag at second, not that umpire Brian Runge noticed. As you can see here --

-- Adam Lind was not nuts about this, nor should have been. In any event, Bautista came in to tie the game at three on a wild pitch, but the Jays left an E5 double out there to die to end the inning.


Let us reconvene in the bottom of the twelfth, long after the Blue Jays had strangely lost the DH through pinch hitting machinations in the bottom of the ninth and defensive reorderings in the top of the tenth. Leading off that home half of the final inning of baseball to be played in Toronto this year was that selfsame E5, who curled a 3-2 hanging breaking ball just inside the foul pole to give the Blue Jays their eleventh walk-off win of the season. And there was much rejoicing, because it owned. The Blue Jays were perfect in extra innings at home this year, which is a pretty awesome thing to be. Thanks, guys.


I was struck last night by the end-of-season baseball feelings displayed by young Navin Vaswani of NotGraphs, whose emoting I have linked to previously in these pages. The last home game of the year is invariably a melancholic affair, even, or perhaps especially, when it ends like this one did. In the tellingly sepia-tone-titled "One Last Night At The Ballpark," Navin had this to say:   

I’m at the Rogers Centre. Section 217, first base side. The lid’s open. There couldn’t be finer weather for the grand finale, the last baseball game in Toronto this year.

Vernon Wells is getting “the business” in left field. An elderly woman to my right booed him when he came to bat in the fifth. She’s merciless. A couple of enthusiastic Blue Jays fans, or, as I like to call them, “clowns,” just started the wave.

There’s an Englishman sitting behind me, at his second game this week. About baseball he said: “I just wish we had this in England.”

Baseball’s the best. It’s going to be a long winter.

 He did not stop there:

ADDENDUM: Edwin Encarnacion — “Double E,” not “E5″ — walked it off for Toronto. It was glorious. The Blue Jays made sure that since they weren’t going to the postseason, neither were the Los Angeles Angels. Here’s to playing spoiler.

In the 9th and 12th innings, when Jose Bautista stepped up to bat, most everyone in the building rose to their feet and showered the American League’s Most Valuable Player with applause, and chants of “MVP! MVP! MVP!” This warmed my baseball heart. We might not have given him the many curtain calls he probably deserved, but Bautista was appreciated. His has been another incredible season, one this city won’t soon forget.

I had it all Wednesday night: Great company; delicious sweet potato fries; a beautiful night; a couple of Bud Light Limes; and an extra innings, come-from-behind walk-off Blue Jays win. If that’s the last baseball game I ever have the privilege of watching in person, I’m good. No complaints.

It would be easy to make light of this as the kind of naked sentimentality best reserved for the ear of one's significant other, or perhaps best confined to the heavily annotated pages of one's scorekeeping book, even. But I salute Navin. These are baseball feelings of the highest order. Is there a more profound baseball feeling than the end-of-season baseball feeling? I submit that there is not. Bless you, Navin.


KS

Rays 6, Blue Jays 5: And Yet There Was Much to Like

This close to a triple play!

Maybe it was the lawn-mowing-perfect-summer-Saturdayness of it all, but I enjoyed the heck out of yesterday's long, lazy game. Which is saying something, because Shawn Camp and Jesse Litsch combined to ruin Louis Perez's solid start with a three-run seventh (curse you, B. J. Upton) and the Blue Jays' comeback ultimately fell a run short. And actually, this one-run loss came on a day when Jose Bautista totally misread an Adam Lind drive off the wall in the first. There can be absolutely no doubt in anyone's mind (least of all Bautista's) that he should have scored on that play, but he didn't, and yet here I am, utterly undespondent. I just really like that Eric Thames went 2-4 with a home run late (after a nine-pitch at bat!); that E5 homered and walked; and that J. P. Arencibia doubled and threw out three baserunners (and nearly picked a dude off first, which is arguably the ultimate form of catcher awesomeness). Even Bautista, while not at his best, doubled, walked, and threw a guy out at third, you know? Just all kind of cool things happening yesterday, even if the end result isn't what I might have had in mind. 


Hey, did you hear that A. J. Burnett allowed six straight extra base hits the other day? Isn't that awesome? I can't think of a single baseball player that, broadly speaking, I don't want to do well, beyond a simple "I hope they do not do well against the Blue Jays" -- it's just not how I enjoy the game, and I'm not suggesting this is better or worse than a legitimately hate-filled approach, which is a totally viable way to enjoy sports, obviously -- except for maybe A. J. Burnett. And so his recent struggles have, well, they haven't made me glad, exactly, but I have certainly chuckled. Not chuckling: A. J. Burnett.

A. J. Burnett, shown here not chuckling.

The struggles of A. J. Burnett make up for things like the Yankees hitting three grand slams in a single game against Oakland this week (they batted sixteen times with the bases loaded, which is maybe the even crazier stat). 


Finally, how did I not mention previously that the Arizona Diamondbacks this week fielded an infield that was identical to a 2007 Blue Jays infield, and that according to Retrosheet, that has probably never happened before? McDonald, Hill, Roberts, Overbay. That is nutty! 


Actually finally, here is a neat picture where you can see the field reflected in Tim Tschida's mask. Neat!

Steeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

KS

Royals 9, Blue Jays 6: Toronto Drops Series to Kansas City Juggernaut

If you are wondering whether or not this dropped pop up led to runs, know that it totally, totally did.

Not great. The Blue Jays came back from a 4-3 west coast road trip -- which, given the way the Blue Jays play out west, is an unassailable triumph -- only to lose two out of three to the perennially, deservedly lowly Kansas City Royals, a team which I have not yet forgiven for 1985, when they had the audacity to come back against an obviously superior Blue Jays team in the American League Championship Series and deprive Toronto's best-ever baseball team the championship it so richly totally didn't deserve because it couldn't beat Kansas City in the ALCS. I was six.

Rather than focus on the negative coming out of last night's s-show, however, I would like to take a moment to point out that J. P. Arencibia hit his twentieth home run of the season, tying John Buck's all-time team-high mark for catchers, leaving him only four behind Eric Hinske (lol)'s Blue Jays rookie record of twenty four. Should we also note that Jose Bautista went 2-3 with a double and two walks, and at this point should pretty clearly win the AL MVP this year and actually might because of Ellsbury/Pedroia/Gonzalez vote splitting? Let us also note that E5, who has been absolutely tearing it up in the second half, is having the weirdest year ever: how is it even possible to hit 13 HR and 31 2B and only have 42 RBI? That is legitimately shocking. I was no less shocked when it was demonstrated at Drunk Jays Fans (which has been so much better this season than last, you have no idea) that E5 is basically the fourth-best DH in the league, and the three guys who are better cost a comparative fortune. He is an enigma, this E5.


But the final word today goes to Brett Cecil, whose countenance here speaks to last night's awfulness.

Hwwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh?

KS

Blue Jays 7, Athletics 0: You know what, I think I like this west-coast road trip.

Three-hitter. No big deal.

Not only are the Blue Jays winning out west, they're scoring most of their runs before I go to bed, which is simply outstanding. Last night, to go along with Ricky Romero's three-hitter (9 IP, 2 BB, 6 K; no big deal), Lawrie singled in a Rasmus double, E5 singled in a Bautista double, and Rasmus hit a two-run shot all before bedtime. It was exquisite. Also I have heard and read reports that further runs were later scored! 


KS