The Rest-of-August Wrap Up: Honestly? Really Pretty Good!

the lads

Aside from the reflections on the fleeting nature of all human glory occasioned by the retirement of the great Joey Votto (several from Votto himself, delivered in his characteristic mélange of disarming frankness, fondly recalled childhood, and straight-up whimsy), you know something? August was a great month of Blue Jays baseball! I admit that several of the young boppers currently bopping remain strange to me, but it is a welcome strangeness after a fairly feeble first half from the guys of whom I had previously heard. As you know, fifteen-win months (which don't even sound that hard!) are the gateway to ninety-win seasons (which are almost impossible!), and it kind of crept up on me that the Blue Jays actually managed sixteen wins in August. Did it help to play seven against the Angels? Oh necessarily, and yet the Blue Jays won literally all seven, which is in and of itself pretty sweet. Vladdy has continued to mash well above his (young) career (young) norms, and looks to be a top-ten player in all of baseball on the year with even a decent September to wrap things up. More surprisingly, for at least a few weeks, Bowden Francis has been the best pitcher in all of baseball. Nobody thinks that's going to hold, obviously, but it's been neat, and if he could even be a decent middle-of-the-rotation sort of guy next year, that would go an awfully long way (towards my enjoyment). With a good September, the Blue Jays would end up a .500 team; with a decent one, a handful of games under, which would probably feel like a the fairest representation of what has been. But I don't know. I feel like this team as currently constituted, with no real upgrades over the winter, is a slightly better than .500 team in 2025, and there will certainly be a little upgrading here and there with whatever money remains after signing Vladdy to a zillion-year, squillion-dollar contract extension (please please please do this, guys). 

Anyway, as Keegan Matheson noted recently, "baseball: they just keep playing it." Let's see how it goes!

KS

2024 Games One-Hundred-Fifteen through One-Hundred-Seventeen: Blue Jays 4, Angels 2; Blue Jays 6, Angels 1; Blue Jays 9, Angels 2

 

bro bro bro bro bro bro bro bro bro bro bro bro

I can only understand this three-game sweep against the Angels as a further attempt to troll me with a belated charge at the .500 mark, and honestly, I'm not thrilled about it. Nor was George Spriger thrilled, one might transition seamlessly, about a hit-by-pitch call that did not occur the other night, and which became the subject of a pretty good Jomboy breakdown here. The only thing Jomboy misses by talking over the in-game audio is George Springer's delightfully high-pitched "What?" of pure disbelief just before he totally lost it. Even when he is lightly misbehaving, as he certainly is here, I nevertheless find George Springer a likeable guy, and I hope he is able to continue with his recent work of not being the league's worst hitter (it's more fun for me when he isn't). 

KS

2024 Games One-Hundred-Twelve through One-Hundred-Fourteen: Blue Jays 3, Athletics 1; Athletics 1, Blue Jays 0; Athletics 8, Blue Jays 4

I think they should just believe Vladdy in these situations

A drag, certainly, to drop two of three to an Oakland team that, while way better than it probably should be, is nevertheless not at all good, but the most notable thing to occur this weekend was the end of Vladdy's twenty-two game hit streak, only six shy of the team record. Want to see the list? I bet you do! 

28 Shawn Green (1999)

26 John Olerud (1993)

26 Shannon Stewart (1999)

26 Edwin Encarnacion (2015)

25 Scott Rolen (2009)

22 Vladimir Guerrero (2024)

22 Vladimir Guerrero (2022)

22 Carlos Delgado (2000)

22 George Bell (1989)

Some surprises there for sure! Is Shawn Green the best Blue Jay I usually forget ever even played for us? I think he might be!

KS

2024 Games One-Hundred-Nine through One-Hundred-Eleven: Blue Jays 5, Orioles 2; Orioles 7, Blue Jays 3; Blue Jays 7, Orioles 6

 

go Vladdy go

Well alright! Well okay! Two out of three from the first-place Orioles! That's all we need! Do that like eight more times and we're right back at .500! And still probably in last place in the AL East, but there is a quiet dignity to every .500 season, in my view, and it remains my genuine although distant hope that we get there. I will note, though, that one problem we seem likely to come up against in that regard is that, between the deadline deals and some regrettably persistent injuries, the bullpen is looking a little thin, quite frankly; things are a little lean out there. A little lean. Out there.   

KS

2024 Games One-Hundred-Six through One-Hundred-Eight: Blue Jays 8, Yankees 5; Yankees 8, Blue Jays 3; Yankees 4, Blue Jays 3 (F/10)

reality has reached the point that it often looks
almost as good as MLB 10: The Show

One of the more cheering things that can happen in the course of a baseball season is for an underperforming roster understandably abandoned by its front office after a poor showing in the first half somehow finds within itself whatever it was that had been missing and goes on a spirited and unlikely run no one thought they had in them. Let me be very clear that that is not in any way what seems to be happening here. However! The Blue Jays played pretty well in Yankee Stadium this weekend! Friday was a convincing performance; Saturday admittedly got away from them a little; but Sunday was an extra-innings affair that could easily have gone either way. Have the seemingly-still-playoff-bound Yankees been in something of a tailspin for kind of a while now? Sure! But this was still good! Good job, Blue Jays! I really will try to learn the names of the new guys as soon as the Olympics are behind us and you have my undivided sporting attention once more (for now it's just too much).

KS

2024 Games One-Hundred-Two through One-Hundred-Five: Orioles 11, Blue Jays 5; Blue Jays 8, Orioles 4; Orioles 6, Blue Jays 2; Orioles 10, Blue Jays 4

 

curse that handsome devil

"Blue Jays Hoard Prospects in Eight Deadline Deals" is probably pretty far from the kind of headline any of us had expected headed into this season, but with a seeming lock on last place in the AL East one hundred games into this lightly dismal summer, it's the thing to do, right? To identify prospects? And then to hoard them? Notably, the Blue Jays did not trade anyone to whom their contract commitments extended beyond this present year, but only those who would be leaving in a couple months anyway: Yimi, Nate Pearson, and Danny Jansen, as we'd mentioned previously, followed by Justin Turner, Kevin Keirmaier, Trevor Richards (whose changeup will be missed! by me!), IKF, and, completely unsurprisingly, Yusei Kikuchi, in a deal that had Astros fans bemoaning how much they were giving up for really-not-that-many Yusei Kikuchi starts. To those Astros fans I would say firstly that Yusei Kikuchi is a special guy (just you wait and see), and secondly thank you very much haha. I am insufficiently "up on things" to really know how the Blue Jays made out on all these trades, but the consensus from the wags seems to be that they made out really quite well, given the circumstances? With the expanded Wild Card playoffs keeping more teams in the running later into the season, and so (in the sense of "thus") fewer teams truly selling, guy-yields (how much you for your guys) are now significantly higher than we're used too. A silver lining!

And here's another: Vladdy went seven-for-ten with three doubles, two homers, and five RBIs in Monday's doubleheader against the much, much better Baltimore Orioles, and is on as hot a run as he's had at the dish as at any point since his monstrous, MVPesque 2021 season (a troubled time for us all, but less so for Vladdy [though perhaps I presume too much]). For the rest of the way, I will mostly just be on VladdyWatch, I think, though I will try to keep my heart open to the possibility of other neat things happening as well. 

KS

2024 Games Ninety-Nine through One-Hundred-One: Blue Jays 6, Rangers 5; Blue Jays 7, Rangers 3; Blue Jays 7, Rangers 3

 

Yusei'd Kikuchi; we said pitch (with apologies to the great Maureen Konnyu)

What a strange weekend: a walk-off win Friday night, a Kevin Gausman complete game Saturday, and homers from Varsho and Vladdy (another one!) to complete the sweep. Good times! And yet these were also the days in which we began the trading of all our guys. Yimi Garcia will no doubt have a nice time in Seattle, but what sort of time am I to have in his absence? Has that been considered? Nate Pearson to the Cubs is not a move I feel deeply, but Danny Jansen to the Red Sox is a tough one. Jansen, a power-hitting catcher enjoyed by all, was drafted by the Blue Jays at seventeen, and had been our longest-serving Blue Jay, but I guess that's probably Vladdy now? The worst, of course, is yet to come, as there is no chance they don't trade Yusei Kikuchi, for sure one of the top starting pitchers available ahead of this year's deadline. Our time with Yusei Kikuchi began as a genuinely baffling ordeal, from which he emerged as a truly sympathetic character as he lived and died with every pitch, perhaps the most scrutable pitcher I can recall. And though he has not worn his banana yellow glove in quite some time, he will forever wear it in my heart, both hands on head as he waits to see if Kevin Kiermaier was able to run that one down in the gap . . . oh thank god he did, okay, big breath, what's next . . .    

KS  

2024 Games Ninety-Six through Ninety-Eight: Rays 5, Blue Jays 2; Blue Jays 6, Rays 3; Rays 13, Blue Jays 0

 

"work from dome"

Ah, a getaway-day afternoon game to wrap the three-game set after splitting the first two; how pleasant! Unless you give up thirteen runs (five in the seventh to go along with the four in the sixth) against just two hits. That's really all we got! Just the two!

KS

2024 Games Ninety-Three through Ninety-Five: Tigers 5, Blue Jays 4; Tigers 7, Blue Jays 3; Blue Jays 5, Tigers 4

 

tfw Vladdy gets one

It is somewhat dispiriting, certainly, that the Detroit Tigers had more grand slams this weekend (that would be two) than the Toronto Blue Jays had wins (just the one), but I would instead like to focus firstly on how Vladdy's seasons continues to chug along at a reasonable pace (as pictured above), and then (which is to say now) on how George Springer, who spent two months as literally the worst hitter in the major leagues, is all of a sudden catching up with the 95MPH+ fastballs against which he had previously seemed totally overmatched, and now stands as a slightly above average batter (103wRC+) with a real shot at a possibly-non-messed-up season (1.6 fWAR at the moment). So that's something!

KS

2024 Games Ninety through Ninety-Two: Diamondbacks 5, Blue Jays 4; Diamondback 12, Blue Jays 1; Blue Jays 8, Diamondbacks 7

you said it, Yusei Kikuchi; you said it, brother

I felt good for the recently waived (and, darker still, cleared) Kevin Kiermaier when he slammed grandly Sunday afternoon against the (underperforming? yet still much better than us?) Arizona Diamondbacks. Kiermaier, a legitimately all-time great defensive centre fielder (all of the available numbers confirm the eye-test in this case), continues to go like hell out there, but with dwindling results, and this could very much be it for him. What's worse, he's pretty clear-eyed about it: "If it’s the end," he told Hazel Mae, "I’m blessed and grateful." That's for sure the right mindset, but it makes it harder to watch than if he was leaving the game embittered and spiteful. Ah jeez, is all one can muster about the whole situation. The Blue Jays needed every one of those four Kiermaier RBI on Sunday as they barely hung on to eke out their only win in a fairly shabby series to wrap a miserable first half of deservedly last-place baseball. The only other really remarkable occurrences over the weekend were Daulton Varsho's triples in three straight games (how weird is that!) and John Schneider getting tossed on an egregious swinging strike call that went against, well, Daulton Varsho, actually (he's in the mix!). It was nice to see Lourdes Gurriel Jr. continue to bloom where he's planted, his hair now a deeply charismatic purple to match a D-backs accent colour. I miss that guy! Not like I miss Téo, though, who spent some quality time with Vladdy Monday night whilst winning the Home Run Derby. Vladdy wore an old Hernandez 37 Blue Jays jersey for the final round, which moved me more than I would have expected, even? "It’s like we were born to have this friendship," Téo said about Vladdy one time, which is really quite a thing to say about your pal.

KS

2024 Games Eighty-Eight through Ninety: Mariners 2, Blue Jays 1; Blue Jays 5, Mariners 4; Blue Jays 5, Mariners 4 (F/10)

 

he caught this one, and then hit the wall *so* hard

Although it was a drag to drop a game in which Kevin Gausman struck out ten, that was really the only drag of any kind across this delightful weekend of baseball in front of huge Seattle crowds that consisted of, conservatively, fifteen-thousand-or-so Blue Jays fans each day. The atmosphere was fantastic! And strangely tense, for all that it was a pleasantly overperforming first-place team against a tremendously underperforming last-place one (guess which one's us!). As we enter the last few weeks before the trade deadline, and so the last few weeks with this particular group of Blue Jays of which I remain quite fond (despite all that has occurred), this unexpectedly cheering weekend felt like a bittersweet sendoff for some yet-to-be-determined guys. It was a useful reminder, too, that whether the Blue Jays are in first place and cruising, or woefully out of it to start July, the fundamentals of my experience of baseball remain the same: I will put the game on, and if it is close or otherwise interesting, I will enjoy some baseball, and if it is not, I will mutter, then pursue other interests. It's pretty good either way.   

KS 

2024 Games Eighty-Four through Eighty-Seven: Astros 3, Blue Jays 1; Blue Jays 7, Astros 6; Astros 9, Blue Jays 2; Astros 5, Blue Jays 3

 

there are roughly a squillion Blue Jays pictures
from this angle and I like every one of them

On Canada Day, Yariel Rodríguez took a perfect game into the fifth, but the Blue Jays lost 3-1; the next day, the Blue Jays jumped out to a 7-0 lead through four, and barely hung on for a 7-6 win. It actually felt kind of worse! This is the first season in what feels like a very long time that the Astros haven't been especially good, or even really all that good at all, so to lose three of four to them feels different (and pretty bad!) than it had in recent years (honestly who could mind it?). Anyway. On we go.   

KS  

2024 Games Eighty through Eighty-Three: Blue Jays 9, Yankees 2; Yankees 16, Blue Jays 5; Blue Jays 9, Yankees 3; Yankees 8, Blue Jays 1

 

hey, good for him

George Springer came into Friday night's game against the Yankees as literally the worst hitter in the league by OPS (a slightly mathematically-invalid measure that nevertheless correlates awfully strongly with runs scored, so here we are!), and, as you would therefore expect, launched two three-run home runs (even one would have been pleasingly novel!). It was lovely to see, honestly, as this season must just be misery for him (allowing, of course, for the fact that all of his material needs continue to be extremely met). It was a strange start to what ended up a strange series: you'd think a series-split against the until-recently-first-place Yankees would be a fairly welcome thing in a more or less straightforward sense, but the two games the Blue Jays lost were just lost so hard that it felt like we lost like eight games or so (in a single weekend). More cheeringly, though, Vladdy continues to rake to such an extent that he was named the AL Player of the Week and has taken the lead in All-Star voting for first base. Good for him! May Vladdy's exploits continue to sustain us through this lightly unsatisfying Blue Jays season. 

KS

2024 Games Seventy-Eight, Seventy-Nine, and Eighty (kind of): Red Sox 7, Blue Jays 6; Blue Jays 9, Red Sox 4; Plus a Rainout

get a roof

The Boston series consisted of an enormously dispiriting loss, a genuinely stirring triumph, and a game suspended in the second inning due to rain. The three true outcomes!

KS

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 

2024 Games Forty-Nine through Fifty-Two: Blue Jays 9, Tigers 1; Tigers 6, Blue Jays 2; Tigers 2, Blue Jays 1; Tigers 14, Blue Jays 11

pretty much your standard soul-crushing
three-run walk-off (two outs, full count, etc.)

That the Blue Jays averaged 5.75 runs per game against the Tigers (a pretty big step up from the nearly league-worst 3.4 they've been ticking along at so far this season generally) and still managed to drop three of the four games is hard to figure out, until you recall that the bullpen, which we had every reason to believe would be absolutely no worse than fine, and possibly quite good, is actually terrible this year despite the tremendous performance of Yimi Garcia, who, tragically, finally got touched a little in Sunday's truly disastrous great-big-comback-omg-ope-nope-wait-the-bullpen-blew-it full-on catastrophe of a 14-11 walkoff loss. A mess! A total mess! Unsurprisingly, talk is turning to which of our guys have but a single year left on their deals, because those guys are probably not going to be around after the trade deadline! Because why would they be! Goodness me but this stinks!

Amidst all of this, though—and it really is terrible!—I would like to note the extent to which Vladdy, just like as an individual dude, has turned it around after a rough start. Would you believe that, two months in, he is actually on pace for his second best season? There's no reason to think he'll ever equal his MVP-level (in a non-Ohtani year, he'd have won it) 166 wRC+/6.3fWAR 2021, but the 140wRC+ he has put up so far this year is for sure a far sight better than last year's 118, which put him at 1.3fWAR, a deeply meagre total for a guy who is Vladdy. But now, he's hitting .302, he's getting on base at a .393 clip. Admittedly, the power isn't where you'd expect it to be, but I don't think it's unreasonable to think it's still in there somewhere, given his still-ludicrous bat-speed and exit velocity. 

It's not even the end of May, though, and this is what I have been reduced to: looking to individual performances, because the team is utterly cooked. It's been kind of a while since this has been the case, but I have seen more bad seasons than good, certainly, and am adjusting fine (I think). 

KS

2024 Games Forty-Six through Forty-Eight: Blue Jays 9, White Sox 3; White Sox 5, Blue Jays 0; Blue Jays 9, White Sox 2

 

the ancient tableau 

This is perhaps an odd response to a series win in which the Blue Jays scored nine runs twice, but I am dispirited, so dispirited, in fact, that I am switching to series-recap mode. I find myself in a similar state of mind to that expressed by Kevin Gausman after Wednesday night's two-hit, shutout loss to a terrible team (allowing, of course, for the fact that Garrett Crochet is for sure a good pitcher) in that i) I too think this is a good group of guys, and ii) this group of guys will not be together very much longer unless they start winning some games here guys, golly (heavy emphasis on the second syllable). But surely a series win, you might well ask, in which the boys would appear to have at least temporarily elected to bop, should be enough to allay this dispiritment slightly? Surprisingly, no! People are asking if I'm good—I'm upset!

KS

2024 Game Forty-Five: Blue Jays 5, Rays 2

easy, big fella

I could not be more delighted to have been proven wrong about Alek Manoah, who I had written off as irretrievably cooked. Not so! A good start followed by a great one, and here I am, revealed a fool. But I'll take it! A big day for another truly large dude in Daniel Vogelbach, a triple short of the cycle (he has tripled, but it was year ago), helped end an objectively poor series on a fairly pleasant note, with the remarkably lowly Chicago White Sox coming to town for three starting with a Victoria Day matinee. It sounds weird to say about a 14-33 team (yikes!), but the White Sox have actually been better than the Blue Jays over the last few weeks, so while this series offers the Blue Jays a chance to come a good deal closer to .500, it also holds the very real chance of genuine humiliation! Let's go!

KS

2024 Game Forty-Four: Rays 5, Blue Jays 4

 

help him before he pitches again

Here's a way we haven't lost in a while: blowing a four-run lead! Not a great result, but there was novelty to it, in that sense. Nate Pearson made a fine hash of the up-and-down Kevin Gausman's admirable start, and another impeccable inning from Yimi, and the objective fact of Pearson's 6.00 ERA now fully supports my subjective impression that you cannot run this guy out there in situations that matter at all, and my hope is they use him differently going forward, maybe? That aside, it was a great relief (unlike Nate Pearson! he's not great at relief!) to see Davis Schneider in the leadoff spot (Springer batting sixth), and Vladdy's three-for-four deepens the sense that he might have figured things out? A little? The loss drops the Blue Jays to six games below .500 for the first time since the end of the 2019 season, which is dark, but serves as a reminder of just how much fun it has been to watch the 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023 teams. It felt this way at the time, but I feel it more and more as time passes: 2021 really was the year . . .  

KS  

2024 Game Forty-Three: Rays 4, Blue Jays 3

 

hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey

The Blue Jays' three-run eighth (that brought us to within a run) was cut short of what it might have been with George Springer's inning-ending double play, and while that could obviously happen to anybody, it does remind the group (if I may be so bold as to speak on behalf of the group in this instance) of how little sense it makes to have the team's worst hitter this year getting the most plate appearances by insisting that he is "a leadoff hitter" while displaying none of the characteristics that you would like a hitter hitting leadoff to, like, have. But I could only mind any of it so much, as it all unfolded within the overall minding-context of this one being another Apple TV game, and so it all came to me as a rumour. 

KS 

2024 Game Forty-Two: Orioles 3, Blue Jays 2

 

come on, man

You'll never guess who hit the walk-off home run of Jordan Romano in this one! Haha just kidding, you absolutely would, in that it was Adley Rutschman, his third of this rain-shortened two-game series (a welcome reprieve for the short-handed Toronto Flu Jays). But this was a great game, just like the Monday-night opener, low-scoring and strangely intense given the small (but lore-wise) Baltimore crowds. It's not like the Blue Jays have started scoring or anything—let's not go nuts!—but if they're going to play in games of this quality, it's going to be hard to mind any of it. These two games in Baltimore are for sure the æsthetic high-point of the season so far.  

KS

2024 Game Forty-One: Blue Jays 3, Orioles 2

 

more like Daulton Varsho(w)

An eighth-inning Varsho homer to tie it, a little ground ball to second (also Varsho!) to knock in the winning run in the tenth, and tremendous work from Berrios and Yimi before handing the ball off to Romano for a two-inning save, which is all to say this was just about a perfect outing from the Blue Jays, but what I am left more than a little haunted by are the two Adley Rutschman home runs, in that this kid is going to be a problem—for the league generally, but for my enjoyment in particular—for like ten years. It's going to be brutal.

KS 

2024 Game Forty: Twins 5, Blue Jays 1

by no means the problem

This seemed an impossibility even a week ago, but it must be said that Alek Manoah was great today, and looked every bit like the last season-or-so had never even happened. He pitched so well, and so efficiently, that he deserved a much better fate than the inevitable Carlos Santana homer (how is it always Carlos Santana, whoever he's playing for?) that put three unearned runs on the board in the seventh (the usually sure-handed Ernie Clement actually booted two routine plays on the day). Not that it mattered, or course, given our lone run. But the roof was open on Mother's Day, at least, and everybody looked sharp in their pink accents. I find some comfort in these small things. 

KS 

2024 Game Thirty-Nine: Blue Jays 10, Twins 8

genuinely refreshing

 "Blow it up," read the text that arrived before I'd even turned the game on. "Trade everybody." And yet! The Blue Jays stormed back from a truly deflating 7-1 deficit (Gausman didn't get a whole lot of help behind him, but he was also fairly brutal on his own merits) on the strength of home runs from Bo, Davis Schneider, and Danny Jansen, and all kinds of other very good hits also! I was stoked! The Twins (with whom no one's problem could ever really be) basically do not lose these days, and certainly not in this kind of calamitous fashion, so let us savour this one, mired, though we still totally very much extremely are, in the AL East basement.  

KS

2024 Game Thirty-Eight: Twins 3, Blue Jays 2

eight innings of this (didn't matter though!)

Yusei Kikuchi pitched about as well against the improbably excellent (something like fifteen-and-two in their last seventeen, I think they said?) Minnesota Twins as you could ever ask him to pitch against anyone—two runs on four hits and no walks over eight innings—but, true to form, nobody really got any hits or scored any runs. Vladdy's singles continue, which is I suppose a bright spot? Could stand to be brighter out there though, boys! 

KS

2024 Game Thirty-Seven: Blue Jays 5, Phillies 3

 

the whole game was exactly like this

Five runs on five RBI-singles! By four different guys! Praise be! Vladdy, who is quietly snapping out of it, had three hits on the day, and with Justin Turner dropping off a little from his ludicrous first few weeks, Vladdy is probably our best hitter again? So at least that much order has been restored, I guess.

KS

2024 Game Thirty-Six: Phillies 10, Blue Jays 1

 

even so, though

An iffy call on a checked swing extended an inning that culminated in a grand slam, sure, you're mad about it, John Schneider, I get it, but my concern is broader: if we're going to start losing the ones José Berrios pitches, too, then that's it. That's just it.  

KS 

2024 Game Thirty-Five: Nationals 11, Blue Jays 8

 

it's not gonna save you, man

We've got months and months to go, obviously, but as far as "games I minded the most this season" goes, this is going to be a tough one to beat. The Blue Jays scored eight for the first time in about a month—half of them on a true bomb of a Vladdy grand slam (he's not back yet, but it seems to be turning?)—but Alek Manoah, making his first start of the season (Yariel Rodriguez needs a minute), pretty much recapitulated his whole career in a single start, looking almost unhittable at times, at others flying out of his delivery and missing badly, and ultimately getting cooked for seven runs (only six earned, though, as the defense was once again weirdly bad). And even that would have been fine, but for how each of our four relievers allowed a run. I had not even noticed this happening, honestly, but our bullpen, which was such a source of strength last year, is now league-worst. League-worst! And our batting is only slightly better than that. The starters have been exceptional, of course, aided by what had been, before this strange weekend (are the Nationals rubbing off on us?), really very strong defense indeed. We're in real trouble here, guys! Or maybe it's just this: we're going to be about a .500 team for the first time in a while, and we all need to adjust to that, emotionally. We've got the Phillies next, and right now I feel like, well, it might as well be the Phillies . . . 

KS

2024 Game Thirty-Four: Blue Jays 6, Nationals 3

 

come on, Blue, you can't throw a guy out of the game for hating himself

A home run from the returning Kevin Kiermaier, a very strong five-and-a-third from Kevin Gausman, and maybe we are back to our winning ways after this recent two-and-eight "blip"? What was most notable to me, though, was Bo Bichette's first-ever ejection, as he slammed his helmet down and uttered a single word (guess which one?) after a (not great) called third strike. It was genuinely surprising that he got tossed for this, as he specifically turned away from the umpire before any of it, which usually means you get fined for an "equipment violation" maybe. And though it was definitely the called strike that got him, Bo's anger seemed (characteristically!) directed at himself as much as anything external (wherever you Bo, there you are). He didn't say another word to the umpire, nor did he even turn his head to look at him, nor yet break stride as he walked back to the dugout and soon thereafter the clubhouse. Bo Bichette was the single most composed tossed baseball player I have ever seen. It was extraordinarily "show."

KS 

2024 Game Thirty-Three: Nationals 9, Blue Jays 3

guys it is one thing to disappoint *me*,
but your actions are hurting Yusei Kikuchi right now

I was spared much of the indignity of this one owing to it being an Apple TV exclusive, but I have MLB Radio, and we all have MLB Gameday, and so was, on the whole, all-too-aware of how the Blue Jays' early lead—a product of Washington's famously shaky defense—was frittered away not by Yusei Kikuchi, who did a great job, but first by the genuinely-bad-this-year Eric Swanson (it pains me to say it), and then some fairly lousy defense of our own: four unearned runs allowed in a(n enigmatic) Genesis Cabrera-ninth. Guys this is not too fun right now! Washington is a bad team! Please let's not be worse! 

KS  

2024 Game Thirty-Two: Royals 6, Blue Jays 1

 

come on, man

This one wasn't happening anyway—see, if you can even bear it, the Blue Jays' second straight four-hit batting debacle—but the three-run, eighth-inning home run Michael Massey hit off Nate Pearson sure put a stamp on it. This is consecutive getaway-day games that have been a huge drag, which is particularly hurtful because of how much I enjoy getaway-day games; or rather, how much I would like to enjoy getaway-day games.  

KS 

2024 Game Thirty-One: Royals 4, Blue Jays 1

No it's fine. I feel fine about it.

This one was played at so brisk a pace—two-hours-nineteen minutes!—that it was over before I was even finished at judo. What I have gleaned in the (shady) aftermath is that the faultless José Berrios (March/April pitcher of the month! good for him!) allowed just two runs over seven innings, that Eric Swanson continued to struggle mightily in relief, and that the Blue Jays managed just four hits against Cole Ragans (and pals). Were last night's six runs an illusion? Almost certainly!

KS

2024 Game Thirty: Blue Jays 6, Royals 5

high five high five high five high five high five high five

Hey check it out: it's runs! A totally reasonable number of them! You can win all kinds of games when you score six runs, even ones where Yariel Rodriguez doesn't give you a whole lot, and then the bullpen is pretty good behind him, but not, like amazing. Justin Turner, who has cooled slightly from his better-than-Barry-Bonds start, remains our best hitter by kind of a lot, went two-for-five with a homer, and continues to seem merry, which, as you know, is big.

KS

2024 Game Twenty-Nine: Blue Jays 3, Dodgers 1

 

first of the year!

Gausman largely dealing through seven, a pair of manufactured runs, Varsho snagging one against the wall off the bat of Shohei Ohtani early and another off the bat of Max Muncy late (to get Yimi and Mayza out of an exceedingly ticklish eighth), an opposite-field solo shot from the struggling but beloved Alejandro Kirk (three-for-three! struggling no more!), a remarkable diving George Springer catch in right (his best since the diving centre-field catch in Detroit that time?) to help Romano through the ninth . . . what more do you need for a pleasant Sunday afternoon of Blue Jays baseball? The roof open, I suppose (it is so sunny outside here that I feel like it should be in Toronto, as well, a view that I understand has no basis), but let us not make the perfect the enemy of the rad.  

Hey also: you may have noticed that one of the songs Sportsnet plays as it goes to breaks is, not infrequently, Sloan's "Money City Maniacs," for sure their best-known song, but actually a fairly poor one compared to their songs that are, like, good (or indeed excellent). I would like to propose that they stick with a Sloan song, but opt for a deeper cut, and while really just about anything would do, I think it should probably be "Junior Panthers" at least to start. Thank you.

KS

2024 Game Twenty-Eight: Dodgers 4, Blue Jays 2

 

I had honestly forgotten they'd traded for Glasnow

A two-run game in which the home team brings the tying run to the plate in the bottom of the ninth was objectively a close game, but the way the Blue Jays have been hitting this week—more like not hitting this week! I mean, come on! (we are taking your calls live on air through the top of the hour)—this one felt finished when the Dodgers went up by four in the fourth. It's a bad way to feel, man, and that's just if you're me: imagine poor Yusei Kikuchi! Four runs through six complete is certainly on the low end of what he's done this year, but it's not like a disqualifyingly bad start. It is if nobody's scoring any runs, though! That's five straight losses, turning a totally fine 13-10 into a worrying (to meeeeee) last-place 13-15. 

KS

2024 Game Twenty-Seven: Dodgers 12, Blue Jays 2

 

well that didn't take long

Hey have you noticed how the top of the Dodgers order this year—Mookie Betts, Shohei Ohtani, and Freddie Freeman—consists entirely and exclusively of sure-thing future Hall of Famers? And that all of them are going to be around for kind of a while yet? This is pretty bad news for the National League—the West, especially!—and generally not all that big a deal to AL teams, but it looks like it could be a major problem for the Blue Jays this weekend, if Friday night's endless drubbing is any indication. Chris Bassitt, who would be the first to tell you he has had a lousy month, gave up seven runs on nine hits and three walks and didn't even get out of the third. If we were going to lose this one anyone—and we sure were!—I don't at all mind that an Ohtani home run was part of it, because I just think those are neat. 

KS  

2024 Game Twenty-Six: Royals 2, Blue Jays 1 (F/5)

 

guys it is too rainy to play catch right now

A genuine debacle of a rain delay: three-hours and thirty-eight minutes! And then they didn't even resume play! Just call it! Before any of that! Really, it's amazing they got the four-and-a-half innings they needed to make the game official, dumping all kinds of extra dirt all over the infield to try to dry the pools of standing water that had much of the infield, like, lagooned-up. It had that optimistic but doomed "it'll probably be fine once we rake it" minor baseball/softball energy. A fitting anticlimax to an uninspiring trip to Kansas City. I should note that Dan Schulman and Buck Martinez feel that Kauffman Stadium has the best soft pretzels in the league; I hope this is information that you have a chance to make use of someday, dear reader. 

KS

2024 Game Twenty-Five: Royals 3, Blue Jays 2

 

Vladdy dropped it

In fairness to Vladdy, who just straight-up dropped the ball that Isiah Kiner-Falefa had thrown to him adequately after a nice play at third, he (Vladdy) offered no excuse or even explanation for the error that led to three unearned runs (Kevin Gausman was pitching so much better, too!). He was just like hey what can I say; I dropped the ball and I don't feel great about it. Brutal! It wouldn't have been that big a deal, necessarily, had the boys been boppin', but there has been so little of that lately (Vladdy, himself, for instance, was oh-for-four with 2Ks on the day) that it was pretty much the game. The top of the order—Springer, Vladdy, and Bo—have been less productive so far this year than you would ever expect, and actually all three have been far less effective by OPS+ (what a useful tool that is, by the way! I am still jazzed about it because it still feels new! because I am old!) that the aforementioned and largely faultless Isiah Kiner-Falefa. Baseball: is pretty weird! 

KS