2022 One-Hundred-Fifty-Six: Yankees 8, Blue Jays 3

 

fair play to him

This one was pretty interesting until it got out of hand: Gerrit Cole was perfect until Danny Jansen's home run kicked off a three-run inning to tie it in the sixth (credit to Mitch White who got touched up but was not utterly blasted), but by the time Adam Cimber botched a throw to the plate and got so frustrated at himself that he then forgot to cover home plate (that's a two-run error!) it was very much a wrap. In between, of course, Aaron Judge hit his sixty-first home run of one of the best seasons you will ever see anybody have ever, and, characteristically, he seemed like a pretty nice guy throughout? A significant moment in American League history, if not in baseball history broadly I suppose (the National League: has had some guys), but more significant still for the Blue Jays was Baltimore's loss against the Red Sox the following afternoon, which clinched our first wild card spot in . . . well in just the two years, really, although the 2020 season was strange for any number of reasons (all derived from the one big reason, I suppose). And so here we are! We could lose our last six games (our last eight overall, then) and still be in the playoffs! But let's not! Because I cannot help but feel that if we end up at the Trop that it is curtains, just utterly curtains. Seattle has faded to such an extent that WC3 does not seem all that likely for the Blue Jays (haha prove me wrong, boys!), and I don't even know that that final wild card spot is as desirable, in the end, as I have thought it might be literally all season long, as the Guardians have low-key been better than anybody these last couple weeks. WC2 would maybe be okay if Seattle finished in WC1, which, again, is unlikely, meaning, I think, that WC2 is a ticket to the Trop. And so while it is not literally "WC1 or bust," it sort of is as far as my cares are concerned? It's Alek Manoah on the hill tonight against the Red Sox, in what we will hope to be his final start of the regular season: John Schneider has said he wants Manoah available to pitch the final game against Baltimore if (and, of course, only if) home-field is on the line, which would take Manoah out of the whole wild card round, which you would hate to see, but I get it. I would like to close by noting the odd fact that the Blue Jays have spent literally every day of this baseball season in a playoff position, which is actually totally wild, and compels us, I think, to reflect upon how tumultuous things can feel over the course of even a totally successful good season by a good team. In a sense, bad teams play under a fairly fixed tumult-ceiling, don't they? In that you can only realistically worry so much about them? As is so often the case, there is much to consider.

KS

2022 Game One-Hundred-Fifty-Five: Yankees 5, Blue Jays 2

 

I wish I could say this was the worst of it

The "takeaway" that I have chose to "take away" from this dispiriting loss is that even with a full-on panoply of miscues, mishaps, and even mess-ups, the Blue Jays lost to a good team by an entirely reasonable score of 5-2. Sure, the gaffes and lapses were such that they sent Buck Martinez into a full four minutes (people have posted it!) of "back-in-my-day" in the bottom of the seventh, but hey, what can you do? I will note that the level of hustle Buck Martinez described last night in his widely disseminated clip bears no resemblance to the major league baseball played at any time in my life that I am able to remember, and there is significant overlap between the periods to which Buck referred and to those of my experience (he named names, and they were the names of guys I have watched play baseball, and enjoyed that watching, and they did not, to my recollection, do it as Buck Martinez described last night). There was, as there has been so often lately, a lot of talk about what "can't happen," but it plainly does, so what are we even talking about? Another recent occurrence along those lines was when a graphic was assembled that showed how the Blue Jays record under their top three starting pitchers has been excellent lately, whereas their record with the fourth and fifth spots in the rotation has been very poor. "That can't happen," was a not untypical response, but it's like, yes it can, in that it is happening, and while it is happening you can be at eighty-seven wins with seven games to play, and therefore one of the top teams in Blue Jays history. Right? And then in the playoffs you're pretty much running the top three out an awful lot of the time? These baseball takes have me feeling like Dr. Manhattan! Whom some astute observers have noted looks a whole lot like Aaron Judge! Who sure didn't get a lot to swing at last night, did he? Didn't keep the Yankees from clinching the AL East, though, which they extremely did. What took you so long, one might well ask, given their first half, but this is kind of an "events, dear boy; events" kind of situation (I guess they all are). Mitch White against Gerrit Cole for the series win, let's go! Let's . . . go?

KS

2022 Game One-Hundred-Fifty-Four: Blue Jays 3, Yankees 2 (F/10)

 

go Vladdy

It sure is great that Kevin Gausman settled right in after those two early runs, setting the table, as it did, for a rousing extra-innings walk-off win off the bat of Vladimir Guerrero Jr.! People love stuff like that! Yankees manager Aaron Boone has been at least a little maligned for his decision to pitch to Vladdy, rather than put him on with a base open, but honestly, Alejandro Kirk is the tougher out, and has been all season: higher OBP, higher wRC+, rarely strikes out, and somehow has like twenty infield hits (I know how: Kirk is slow enough that everybody understandably plays him plenty deep, but he makes a tonne of contact and hustles hard out of the box so there you have it, twenty infield hits). Yankees fans "of the internet" were feeling pretty salty about John Schneider's correct decision to walk Aaron Judge in the tenth to load the bases, but I would argue that if you don't want the Blue Jays to walk the best hitter in either league since Barry Bonds, you shouldn't have a .220 hitter (such as for instance Anthony Rizzo) batting behind him for Tim Mayza to get out no problem? And it isn't as though Yimi Garcia didn't go right after Judge and strike him out with the game on the line in the eighth; it isn't like that at all. And so the dream of a Toronto Blue Jays AL East championship realized by the Yankees losing all of their remaining games whilst the Blue Jays win all of theirs lives to die another day!  

KS  

2022 Game One-Hundred-Fifty-Three: Blue Jays 7, Rays 1

 

just out there dinging 

A sheer delight: Ross Stripling and a string of low-leverage relievers (not you, Adam Cimber) including ninth-inning-man Yusei Kikuchi held the ever-(increasingly?)-pesky Rays to just one run on their seven hits. Those were the sorts of relievers called into service on this day because of the extent to which the Blue Jays utterly mashed off the truly excellent Shane McClanahan: Alejandro Kirk's home run went a mile, George Springer's two probably added up to a whole lot of feet also (one was neatly oppo, I should note), and Téo's travelled a fairly absurd four-hundred-sixty-four to left. Oh. Man. The Mariners lost in ridiculous fashion, blowing something like a 10-2 lead giving up an eleven-run inning to the Royals, whilst the Orioles dropped one in extras to the Astros (no shame in that obviously). This split in Tampa was just huge, dropping the Blue Jays magic number to I believe now four, and maintaining a two-game lead for the first wild card spot, and thus a series at home (against either Tampa or Seattle, so it's not all fun and games [though there will be games {which could be fun}]). Three games against the Yankees, who are good again (damn it), will test that lead, but then it's the Red Sox, who are deeply out of it, and finally the Orioles who might very well be out of it by then to? Boy, you would really, really like to think so, wouldn't you?

KS

2022 Game One-Hundred-Fifty-Two: Blue Jays 3, Rays 1

 

the legends say he did this 113 times 

So here is a game I just totally straight-up missed owing to a hurricane, in that the local radio station that carries Blue Jays baseball was not broadcasting at all, and I extremely did not have internet access, so that's about the size of it. All that came to me during the game itself was a text message (even those were spotty) from my brother-in-law that read MERRIFIELD. I asked questions, and got answers: Whit Merrifield's three-run home run (Téo and Zimmer [running or Jansen {pinch hitting for Tapia}] were aboard) complimented Alek Manoah's seven-inning, four-hit (two-walk) shutout ace-terpiece (I'm trying to make that happen [join me]) just wonderfully, and Jordan Romano got Mayza out of a little bit of trouble to close the books on what sounded like a deeply rad game, especially after getting knocked around pretty good in the first two. The split remains in play! It remains! In play!

KS 

2022 Game One-Hundred-Fifty-One: Rays 10, Blue Jays 6

it wasn't even his fault, really

Oh Yimi, oh no: only one of those four eighth-inning runs was earned (a crucial grounder snuck right under Bo's glove to the consternation of all [and especially Bo]), but all four of them belonged to Yimi all the same. A dark, dark day for those of us to whom Yimi matters possibly even more than he possibly ought? To? I was very pleased to see some nascent anti-Yimi sentiment soundly, indeed resoundingly shouted down at the Blue Jays reddit, but it was troubling that it had even emerged in the first place. There was every reason to think the super-fun four-run Blue Jays fifth was going to be enough, maybe even more than enough, but instead we got Tropped.

KS

2022 Game One-Hundred-Fifty: Rays 10, Blue Jays 5

 

so squint we all, José Berríos; so squint we all

Don't be fooled: this one wasn't even really as close as a 10-5 score might suggest (which I grant you isn't all that close to begin with). Things started auspiciously enough, with a George Springer leadoff-triple and a Bo Bichette double to drive him in (Bo Bichette now holds the Blue Jays single-season record for doubles by a shortstop with 42 [and counting!] which I have not checked but must have been a Tony Fernandez record, right?). But José Berríos just did not have it, and allowed three runs in each of his two innings of work. You might think they would just kind of leave him out there to take one for the team at the start of the series rather than tax the bullpen, but José was already closing in on like eighty pitches at that point. It was brutal. A home run for Téo, and two, somehow, for Whit Merrifield were bright spots, certainly, but that's more or less it. A pal sent me a "we'll get 'em tomorrow!" kind of text message, which is a nice sentiment, but it looks like a Mitch White + bullpen day, so maybe we'll get 'em Saturday? I am in no way anti-bullpen-day, and I want only good things for Mitch White, who seems neat, but the Rays are just so endlessly pesky and I hate the Trop so much that I am in a bit of a state.

KS

2022 Game One-Hundred-Forty-Nine: Phillies 4, Blue Jays 3 (F/10)

 

and yet . . .

After Kevin Gausman's six scoreless innings, and Tim Mayza's dicey-but-scoreless seventh (he got Harper! Bryce Harper!), it looked like Vladimir Guerrero's thirtieth home run of the season (a towering three-run shot that had the Phillies' broadcast all quiet like "oh no") was going to be enough. And yet it was slightly not, as Yimi struggled, Romano couldn't strand a runner that needed stranding, and Cimber couldn't keep the Phillies off the board in the tenth. As soon as the Phillies tied it, I felt like I should just turn the game off and go do something else, as it felt like a foregone conclusion, but I persisted. Sort of to my peril? My feelings-peril? But it was another night where the Blue Jays got some help on the out-of-town scoreboard, and we now head into four games in the cursèd Trop (things rank and gross in nature possess it merely) in really good shape, all things considered: two up on Tampa, two-and-a-half over Seattle, and, crucially, six-and-a-half over the Orioles with now just thirteen to play. I almost wish the Rays and Mariners were winning of late, and the Blue Jays could just settle into the third Wild Card spot. It would be so carefree! But instead I am thinking things like, "okay, a split at the Trop ought to be enough to keep the Rays at bay (so to speak) headed into the final homestand, and even if we drop a pair to either the Red Sox or the Yankees . . . ", things like that, things that I don't really want to think about as much as you might think (I would [like {to think about them}]). José Berríos tonight, though! His ERA is down below five (4.99) for the first time in months! Let's go!

KS

2022 Game One-Hundred-Forty-Eight: Blue Jays 18, Phillies 11

 

Blue Jays legend Jackie Bradley Jr.

For the first time in kind of a while, a troubled start for Ross Stripling, not that it mattered all that much on account of: the eighteen runs. And so few of them came on home runs, curiously: Matt Chapman's, certainly, and Jackie Bradley Jr.'s, but aside from that it was just an infinity of hits (literally twenty-one), four of which came from Téo, whom we all wish to prosper. Stripling was probably due, indeed overdue, for a less-than-stellar outing, and it's fine, we'll all just overlook this one, no problem at all, but Julian Merryweather got pasted for five runs in two-thirds of an inning of relief and got demoted pretty much right after. I don't even remember who they recalled in his place! I don't think it was a name I recognized! Harsh realm.  

KS 

2022 Game One-Hundred-Forty-Seven: Orioles 5, Blue Jays 4

 

Vladdy just loves to slide; absolutely loves it

Well this was a weird one! First of all, the 2022 Blue Jays win one-run games at a pretty remarkable clip, and are in fact exceeded in one-run wins only by the Los Angeles Dodgers (who have so many wins of every kind this season that it almost isn't relevant). Losing one feels off. So too did Jordan Romano's first blown save in way more than a month; indeed I believe that this was his first blown save in Toronto in his thirty-three such opportunities? Also the Blue Jays hit into a triple play in the early going, and you just don't see that many of those (first of this long season on either side of the ball, as far as I can recall). So a weird one all around! I very much enjoyed Vladdy's towering home run in the seventh (at the time, it felt like enough), and George Springer's RBI-double in the bottom of the ninth to make the finish super tense, so there was plenty to like here, just not the series sweep we had come to hope for. Alek Manoah, by the way, scattered four hits and an uncharacteristic four walks across six tough (for him) innings in a performance that exhibited, I would argue, José Berríos-levels of "gutsiness," which I do not say lightly. Both guys? To me? Awesome guys. Awesome guys. 

An idle Monday benefited the Blue Jays substantially, as the Rays and Orioles both lost; we got ahead by standing still, kind of. Heading into Philadelphia, the Blue Jays have a game on the Rays, a game and a half on the Mariners, all of which is lovely (for now, it will slide around all over the place in the next two weeks, surely), but the crucial Standings Thing at present is the six-and-a-half-game lead we now enjoy over the Orioles, which honestly, is either enough, or should be enough to such an extent that if it turns out not to be enough, then shame on us, right? And fair play to the other guys? It would be stunning if the Orioles ended this, their noble season, with anything more than like 87 wins, given where they are and what lies ahead, and so the Blue Jays would need, by my math, like 88, right? Which is to say: if the Blue Jays, in their final fifteen games over the next two weeks and two days, can win five of those, then, like, here we go. I say we can!

KS

2022 One-Hundred-Forty-Six: Blue Jays 6, Orioles 3

 

Vladdy was absolutely flying in his approach to this dousing

I barely had time to reflect on just how much a close call on a one-one pitch can change the shape of an at-bat (two-one and one-two are worlds apart!) before Raimel Tapia took the one-two pitch to the wall for a two-out, bases-clearing, three-run double in the bottom of the sixth to put the Blue Jays ahead for good. Springer had driven in a pair on a double earlier, and made a pretty sweet diving catch, too, and that was just enough help for José Berríos, who, without his good curveball, somehow allowed just two runs through six high-traffic innings. He is a real fighter out there! Hey, here's something: we would all agree, I'm sure, that quality starts are a coarse measure, and yet they do have a certain broad utility, right? Three or fewer runs in six or more innings does not tell you everything, but it does tell you those specific things, right? Well would you believe that José Berríos now has a great number of quality starts this season (sixteen) than Kevin Gausman (fifteen)? Isn't that wild! It speaks emphatically to the bimodal distribution of José Berríos' starts! Which has long fascinated me!

And now to low-key watch the scoreboard throughout the rest of this Saturday evening (don't worry, I'll do other stuff too), but the really important part is that the Blue Jays are now fully seven games ahead of the team that most threatens their playoff status with sixteen games to play, which, while not a lock, is fairly premium. With Alek Manoah on the hill tomorrow, a sweep does not seem entirely out of the question, does it? Five back of the Yankees now, by the way, who blew a five-run lead and were walked off by the Brewers last night (imagine Bob Uecker's delight).  

KS

2022 Game One-Hundred-Forty-Five: Blue Jays 6, Orioles 3

 

Springer: dinger

A bullpen day to begin a big (though not huge [for us]) three-game series is not ideal, but five games in the preceding four days is extremely non-ideal, and imposes certain limitations. Unavoidably! But it's really no matter at all when Trevor Richards, a day after getting pasted for five runs in mop-up duty gone extremely awry, appears as the opener and strikes out the side (baseball: is weird). From there, Julian Merryweather pitched a scoreless pair, and while Yusei Kikuchi ran into a little trouble (a triple and a homer pretty much right away), he got the next six batters, striking out four of them. A quick word (editor's note: it turns out not to be quick) on the Yusei Kikuchi situation, if I may, and the kind of irrationality that has crept in around it: I would like to draw your attention to a post by the excellent beat reporter Keegan Matheson, perhaps the best day-to-day "follow" in all of the Blue Jay internet. Last night, in what seemed to me an uncharacteristic moment of sports-radio-call-in-thought, he wrote: "Adley Rutschman takes Yusei Kikuchi yard. Two-run shot. These innings just can't keep happening for a team that's serious about a postseason run." The replies are filled with people who agree, like oh man that is so true about this inning and also serious baseball teams. Isn't this wild? A team that is "serious about a postseason run" can't allow a two-run fourth inning in a scoreless game? Against a good team? Of the twelve teams currently holding a playoff spot across the major leagues, and the handful of teams lurking just beyond those twelve, how many of them do you think are going to go through the day (let alone, say, a series, or a trip through the rotation, or a week) without giving up a two-run inning? Are all of these teams then unserious? Are two-run innings disqualifying? If so then there are no baseball teams that are serious about a postseason run, which is a relief, because then we will not have to play any, and once we get in it all ought to be a breeze. I usually don't mind stuff like this for more than a moment, and almost never write about it, but I think because it was the essential Keegan Matheson carrying on in this way that it stuck with me. It feels closely related to the sentiment, seemingly widespread, that a team that is "serious about the playoffs" can't keep having all these bullpen days, which is a view I find untutored yeah that's right untutored in that, putting aside the five-games-in-four-daysness of the recent schedule (and the not insignificant fact that these bullpen days are working in the very real sense that we are allowing few runs and winning games), who has more bullpen days than the Tampa Bay Rays (who we just saw, guys)? And who makes the playoffs more than those old so-and-sos? I am once again reduced to pleading with the baseball commentariat (broadly conceived) to remember that other baseball seasons have been played prior to this one, and to consider that there are things that occurred during them that we might reflect on to inform our present moment. Failing that, sim some seasons, everybody. Just sim them! You'll learn so much! I keep coming back to this point and I apologize for that!

After Kikuchi, then: Mayza ripped through the top of the order; Cimber, Bass and Garcia took it the rest of the way; and home runs from Matt Chapman (two, in fact!) and George Springer (a three-run dinger!) made things downright comfortable from the sixth-inning on. That was more than enough for a pleasant Friday of baseball (aside from the irredeemable Apple TV+ broadcast [it's okay, it drove me to the comfort of radio and the play-by-play data of my computer phone]), but on top of that, all of the Blue Jays playoff positioning foes (the Yankees, Rays, and Mariners) lost! All of them! This only proved to underscore, in a sense, that the AL East looks like an awfully tough climb at this point (five and a half games with seventeen to go?), but a wild card spot seems more solid with each passing day (six games with seventeen to go!). Another win or two this weekend would be a bold step in the right direction, and so I encourage that. José Berríos up next! 

KS

2022 Game One-Hundred-Forty-Four: Rays 11, Blue Jays 0

that's *another* double

A first-inning Vladdy-and-Bo double steal -- in which Vladdy himself was the one to take third! -- produced a false impression of just how rad this getaway-day game would turn out to be, which was, in the end, not rad at all (aside from how the Rays fielded the first all-Latino starting lineup in MLB history on Roberto Clemente Day [neat]): Kevin Gausman did not pitch terribly, but the three-run home run he yielded to Yandy Díaz in the second kind of sealed the deal on a day where Shane McClanahan was, well, dealing. Gausman, to his credit, lasted seven innings, a great boon to the bullpen ahead of what is sure to be a bullpen day of some description. It went Pop, Richards, and Phelps the rest of the way (though not well!), so all of the "high-leverage" arms should be all set as we prepare for a fairly big series against Baltimore. After the series win against the Rays (which I honestly did not anticipate, and feel, on the whole, pretty great about), the Blue Jays sit fully five games ahead of the Orioles with eighteen games to go, and by my feelings-math (it is a kind of math) can probably pretty much put the Orioles away by winning even two of these three. I hope this line of thinking does not come back to ruin and undo me in the final weekend of the season but you can say that about any number of lines of thinking I undertake, so no news there. 

KS

2022 Game One-Hundred-Forty-Three: Blue Jays 5, Rays 1

 

that's a hundo

On the first pitch he saw from Drew Rasmussen, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hit the one-hundredth home run of his career, which, at twenty-three years old, makes Vladdy one of the youngest to get there, and if you add to that the qualification that one should also have one hundred career doubles (and why not, doubles rule), Vladdy is the seventh youngest ever, I believe I saw. All good stuff! Vladdy added an RBI on a groundout a little later, and that turned out to be all that was needed, as Ross Stripling pitched about as well you'll ever see him pitch (the only exception that comes to mind is the recent start in which he took a perfect game into the seventh against the Orioles). Bo Bichette continues to be the best or second-best hitter in baseball (remembering of course Aaron Judge), and added two more hits (one of them a double [doubles rule]). Things got ever-so-minorly ticklish in the Adam Cimber seventh, and even Yimi himself gave up a couple of hits in the eighth, but in fairness to Yimi, he also struck out the side (go, Yimi; go, Yimi). And then Anthony Bass! Who has really worked out! And that's a series win, regardless of what may come in the Kevin Gausman start. We will all, I am quite sure, take it. 

KS

2022 Games One-Hundred-Forty-One and One-Hundred-Forty-Two (Doubleheader!): Rays 4, Blue Jays 2 (Game 1); Blue Jays 7, Rays 2 (Game 2)

 

honestly? not half bad! (game one)

honestly? really fully completely good! (game two)

It was low-key dispiriting even for those of us unafflicted by tummy issues to begin the day with the knowledge that Alek Manoah would not, as it happened, be starting game one of the day/night doubleheader against the Rays, owing very much to overnight symptoms that left him . . . dehydrated. This meant the game-two plan became the game-one plan, and as far as game two stood, who knew? But two things must be said of the Blue Jays 4-2 afternoon loss: i) the pitching was actually really very good, in that although Julian Merryweather allowed a run as "the opener," it was only the one run, after which the recently recalled Mitch White essentially gave us a quality start (three earned runs over six innings), and David Phelps finished with two clean innings, so great job all around fellows, to not tax the bullpen really at all; and ii) home-plate umpire Ramon Silvestre De Jesus Ferrer had just a tremendous game, realistically as good as it gets, as revealed by the remarkable ball/strike accuracy (which sounds like a character stat [or results table] in a Palladium martial arts rpg when you say it like that) and in terms of getting tricky calls exactly unfailingly immediately right even when they were a little awkward, like sending a runner back to first after inadvertent batter-follow-through contact with the catcher. You can go a whole season without seeing that call once! And De Jesus made it twice! Clearly and correctly both times! It is very easy (fun, too!) to focus on the antagonistic umpires who attempt to cover their declining skill (hey: it comes for us all) through sheer bluster, but when a young(ish) umpire calls a game so expertly and with such poise, let us call attention to that too, maybe, right? Anyway great job!

Game two, of course, offered so many riches that the quality of umpiring isn't even something that made the least impression on me, in that I was like oh hee hee oh hee hee hee pretty much the whole time: not only did Alek Manoah end up making the start, but he pitched into the seventh, allowing just two runs on solo homers (everybody loves Ji-Man Choi, and I can't imagine anybody's problem is with Jonathan Aranda). The Blue Jays didn't manage a run until the sixth, when two "productive outs" from Bo Bichette and Alejandro Kirk scored Vladdy's lead-off double (he has not homered in quite some time, but doubles are fine!). And then the seventh: walks and wild pitches to put Espinal and Jansen (transmuted into Bradley Zimmer) aboard (and then move them around a little) just in time for Whit Merrifield's two-run double just inside the bag at third. George Springer's first home run of September could not really have been better timed, and there you have it, a four-run seventh for a two-run lead! Adam Cimber got into a little trouble with two out in the eighth, so on came Romano for what looked like a four-out save, but after he got a nice easy ground ball to end the inning, the Blue Jays added two more in the eighth, including, most remarkably, Téo's double that scored Alejandro Kirk all the way from first without a throw (such was the dauntlessness of Kirk's hustle). With a five-run lead, why not just throw Zach Pop out there for the ninth? And so they did. 

Sometimes you look at the standings after splitting a double-header and it's like "well why did we even bother?", but that is not at all the way it feels this time, seeing that the Mariners' loss puts the Blue Jays in the top wild card spot for the first time in what feels like a while (I very recently said I would not concern myself with which wild card spot the Blue Jays were in at any particular moment, and I do still feel that way, but I am definitely not above exalting for a moment here and there), but more importantly, even with Baltimore's comeback win over the lowly Nationals, the Blue Jays are still clear of the Orioles by five-and-a-half games, now with only twenty to go (can you believe it? I pretty much can't!). If the Blue Jays can win either tonight's Kevin Gausman game, or tomorrow afternoon's Ross Stripling start, this five-game series against the Rays will have been a really, really big deal for us.

KS 

2022 Game One-Hundred-Forty: Blue Jays 3, Rays 2

 

the sixth inning . . .

. . . but then the eighth!

On the same day Bo Bichette was named American League Player of the Week, he also chose to hit the seventh-pitch of one-on, two-out at-bat in the bottom of the eighth, with the Blue Jays down by one, just ever-so-slightly over the wall in left-centre, and there you go: the Blue Jays had their first and only lead of the game, which Jordan Romano (with a little help from defensive replacement and Blue Jays legend Jackie Bradley Jr.) locked down in the ninth. A really great game, with a slightly-too-intense playoff feel, and a brisk pace, owing in no small measure to the briskness José Berríos brings always, but especially today. His recent run of really good starts continued, and was perhaps I guess even surpassed, with Monday's two runs (just one earned) in his six-and-a-third. You'll take that every time! This win put the Blue Jays just ahead of the Rays in The Wild Card Ordering, but I have pretty much decided not to attend to that Ordering all that closely anymore until we're down to maybe three or four games left, and just focus on how far ahead of the first-non-playoff-team-Orioles we are (it's six games now, with twenty-two to play, which sounds like plenty?). Otherwise it's . . . it's just too much. Finally, on Bo Bichette's recent greatness, I wanted to note that in the eleven games the Blue Jays have played thus far in September, Bo has collected 24 hits, 21 RBI, 7 home runs, 6 doubles, and scored 15 runs, and apparently since people started keeping track of RBIs in the 1920s, the only other player to reach each of these numbers in an eleven-game stretch was Lou Gherig in 1930. This seems notable! Go ahead, Bo!

KS

2022 Game One-Hundred-Thirty-Nine: Rangers 4, Blue Jays 1

 

say what you will, Trevor Richard did indeed "open"

There was no small measure of traffic on the basepaths, both early and often, but in the end, "bullpen day" really went pretty well: Richards, Phelps, Kikuchi, Merryweather, Pop, and Bass allowed, between all like eighty of them, four runs, which is a perfectly reasonable amount of runs to allow, right? This one was on the bats, but you can't even really mind it as we wrap what turns out to have been an eight-and-two road trip, which is just a wildly good kind. So good, in fact, that the Blue Jays head into this weighty week with everything a little lighter: there is now enough "daylight," as they say, between the Blue Jays and Orioles that even if the Blue Jays were to drop all five games (in four days!) against the Rays (wouldn't that be awful! like legitimately awful!), and the Orioles were to win all week, the Blue Jays would still hold the final playoff position as those two bird-teams bird-off against one another next weekend, birdingly. Although Tampa Bay sits only a half-game ahead of the Blue Jays, and so objectively these two teams are like almost exactly equally good, I nevertheless remain spooked by the Rays, and feel like it would be lovely to take even just two of these games; three feels like an impossible dream. Darest we dream it? Darest we?

KS  

2022 Game One-Hundred-Thirty-Eight: Blue Jays 11, Rangers 7

 

he usually needs to run faster

Kevin Gausman, who allowed three runs in the first inning, was certainly not at his best Saturday, but if Raimel Tapia is going to hit monstrous three-run bombs, and Bo Bichette is going to hit three of the Blue Jays seven doubles, then that's fine! Danny Jansen homered also, let us note. Just a great day for the bats: every starter had at least one hit en route to the Blue Jays first double-digit score since the end of July (that's surprising!), so Gausman's iffy-start and Zach Pop's indifferent relief totally get a pass, no problem whatsoever. To return for a moment to Bo Bichette's three doubles, if I may, which is really a lot of doubles: Bo is now the first MLB player with thirteen extra-base hits over a nine-game span since Bo himself did it in 2019 (when he would have been approximately fourteen years old), and ties himself (obviously), Carlos Delgado (1999), and Joe Carter (1990) as the only Blue Jays to have ever hit that many over so few, because really, that is an awful lot of them to hit. Hey great job Bo! And with that, and indeed all of this, the Blue Jays are now closer to the division lead (five back) than they are to being in any kind of Baltimore-trouble, and have tucked, if only temporarily, right into the second wild card spot, a half-game ahead of Seattle, a half-game behind Tampa Bay. I do not anticipate this truly incredible road trip to end with anything but a thud tomorrow, given its bullpen-day nature, but I suppose stranger things have happened? You never know? It went okay in Pittsburgh last week? Maybe Trevor Richards has it all figured out now? And the boys? Will perhaps choose boppin'?  

KS    

2022 Game One-Hundred-Thirty-Seven: Blue Jays 4, Rangers 3

 

pretty much the only play that has not
 gone Bo's way so far in September

Ross Stripling was about as good as you can be, and Bo Bichette continued to be ridiculous, hitting a three-run home run and a triple, but it still came very much down to the wire, and  took Raimel Tapia's steal of second and Danny Jansen's soft single into left to plate the go-ahead run in the top of the ninth. From there, the Blue Jays understandably turned it over to probably the league's best relief pitcher (by some measures!), Jordan Romano, who allowed a baserunner and a steal of second, but nary a run -- it kind of felt like a squeaker! The Blue Jays have been remarkable in one-run games this year, and I would like them to continue to be that down the stretch, please. 

KS

2022 Game One-Hundred-Thirty-Six: Blue Jays 4, Orioles 1

 

Big. Puma.

A slightly shaky first inning yielded soon enough to all kinds of great stuff thereafter:  Alek Manoah allowed just a single baserunner in innings two through eight (inclusive) in what ended up a one-run three-hitter (one walk) of an outing, leaving only the ninth for the still-weirdly-great Jordan Romano, who struck out two and kept everything nice and cool. With pitching like this, you barely need to hit, but Alejandro Kirk decided to anyway, and went three-for-five. Nice! So that makes it a tidy three wins out of four in Baltimore, which puts the Blue Jays a slightly more comfortable four-and-a-half games ahead of the Orioles for the final (and arguably best? have we talked about this? we have? okay just checking) wild card playoff spot. Off to Texas, then, to face the somewhat lowly Rangers while the Yankees and Rays, one would hope, destroy themselves utterly, allowing the Blue Jays to gain a game on one team or the other other with every win this weekend (the Orioles will play Boston, who I hope are about to enjoy a resurgence; I would like them to resurge real quick). The Blue Jays sit a game and a half behind Tampa, and just half a game behind the Mariners so far as the other wild card positions are concerned, but really my attentions (as far as the out of town scoreboard goes) are focused on just the Orioles and the Yankees at this point, really: if the Orioles struggle even a little down the stretch, the Blue Jays should breeze into the postseason; and if the Yankees struggle just a little more than "even a little" down the stretch, the Blue Jays have a slight (but distinct!) shot at the AL East title, which would be amazing to happen. But that is <<un besoin, pas un désir,>> it's okay. I feel reasonably alright about this weekend's baseball, but not great at all about five games in four days against the Rays next week. That could be rough. But here we go!

KS

2022 Game One-Hundred-Thirty-Five: Orioles 9, Blue Jays 6

 

Mitch White did not have "big fun" in Baltimore

Five runs in two-and-a-third from Mitch White didn't do us any favours, nor did the four further runs the bullpen allowed thereafter. Had Trevor Richards, who has been really good lately, not given up three of those bullpen runs, then maybe? But alas. Bo Bichette homered again, this time as part of a four-for-five night, which interestingly brings him to an OPS+ of 121 or a wRC+ of 122 on the season, both of which are precisely the same as his 2021 numbers: although Bo hasn't quite put up the same kinds of totals he did last year, offense is down league-wide, and, relative to the league, he is having the same season at the plate as he did last year. Wild, right? Beyond that, weirdly overconfident inconsequential reliever Bryan Baker decided to be unkind towards Téo and the benches cleared for a bit, but it was, in the end, not really a big deal. Imagine how much of a jerk you have to be to be mean to Téo, though. Fool. Ish. Ness. 

KS

2022 Games One-Hundred-Thirty-Three and One-Hundred-Thirty-Four: Blue Jays 7, Orioles 3 (Game 1), Blue Jays 8, Orioles 4 (Game 2)

 

Some call it "Bo-ing yard"

Bo Bichette made enormous contributions to both halves of the rainy Labour Day doubleheader in Baltimore, becoming only the second Blue Jay to hit three home runs in a single game before his twenty-fifth birthday (guess who the other one is [okay I will just tell you {it's Vladdy}]) in the evening game, after intervening with a quickness in the early game when Kevin Gausman grew understandably irate over crew chief Jeff Nelson's decision to call a balk on what is Kevin Gausman's normal delivery from the stretch, the same one he has used all season, and that he continued to use every single pitch from the stretch after the call today. That was a truly unwieldy opening sentence but there was just so much great stuff yesterday that I am all jumbled up about it, and Bo was in the thick of all of it. Had he not kept Gausman from truly flipping his wig, it could have been an awfully long day for the Blue Jays bullpen, but instead, it was easy work: both starters pitched into the seventh, and gave all of the highest-leverage arms (Romano, Yimi, Bass) a day's rest after a couple pretty heavy days in Pittsburgh to seal the deal on the series sweep. Curiously, the 7-3 game was actually a nail-biter (until the Blue Jays three-run ninth), whereas the 8-4 evening game was never close. You'd never know it from the finals! They look like the same game! And yet. 

I am feeling pretty good with two games remaining in the series and Alek Manoah going in one of them, and I hope you are feeling that way too. Before that, though, there is Mitch White, so kind of a coin toss, maybe? If he can keep it close through five, the bullpen should be in pretty good shape to take it the rest of the way, though, for reasons already discussed. How cheering to think that, should the Blue Jays win Tuesday, and the Yankees lose, the Blue Jays would be closer to the AL East lead (4.5 games back) than to the first non-playoff position (5.5 games ahead). If we accept the Orioles are still "in it" as regards the final wild card spot, and I think we are forced to accept that much, then it is no less true that the Blue Jays are still "in it" as regards the division title, especially with three more games to play against the Yankees. September baseball! 

KS  

2022 Game One-Hundred-Thirty-Two: Blue Jays 4, Pirates 3

 

Nice save, Romano

Téo's ground ball in the seventh found a hole and plated the go-ahead run, Cavan Biggio homered in the fourth, Vladdy stole a base so Kirk could drive him in in the third, and Whit Merrifield knocked Bo in early, but all of that was really just a prelude to Jordan Romano's incredible ninth inning, which opened inauspiciously when Jack Suwinski dunked the teensiest little hit through the (shifted) left side on a pretty good 0-2 pitch. Next up, Cal Mitchell ripped a ball right off of Romano, harmlessly in the sense that Romano was himself physically unharmed, but quite harmfully in the sense that it trickled into the outfield and put runners on the corners in a one-run game, nobody out. But not for long! Because Mitchell stole second! So that's two runners in scoring position, nobody out: anything that gets to the outfield, even a lazy flyball that gets caught, ties the game, and a single of almost any kind wins it (for the Pirates [not my preference]). And the simplest solution at that point, Jordan Romano rightly determined, was to just strike three guys out in a row, no big deal, which he did (no big deal), and then everybody was very happy. It was amazing! I would like to also draw your attention to Anthony Bass' clean eighth (two strikeouts) against all lefties. It felt like it was all lefties all day, actually, as that's how the Pirates lined up against Ross Stripling, which felt like an odd strategy, in that Stripling has had "reverse splits" this year, as he has been even better against lefties than against righties, no doubt due to his really awesome changeup. It's quite a pitch!

And so a series sweep, which is just what we needed. Combined with Baltimore's loss (finally!) on Sunday, the Blue Jays are in the clear by two-and-a-half games, and trail the Rays by one game, the Mariners by two. Fairly astonishingly, the Blue Jays now sit just six games behind the freefalling Yankees, and should seriously consider winning the AL East (let's go). Failing that, though, I could easily content myself with a wild card spot, even their present wild card spot should that be their lot (it might be the best one! we have talked about this!). Four games in three days in Baltimore starts . . . in like two hours, actually, for the first half of a doubleheader, with Kevin Gausman on the mound. Saturday's bullpen day was really the result of the Blue Jays wanting their rotation to be set (more or less [at least better than it would have been]) for these important games at Camden Yards. It's funny, because so long as the Blue Jays win one of the next four, they'll leave Baltimore in the same wild card spot they currently enjoy, so as long as they avoid a four-game sweep, they're fine? And yet, if the Blue Jays somehow manage to win all four, the Orioles would very nearly be buried, six-and-a-half behind with only twenty-some games to go. So I am not approaching this series with dread, fearing that Orioles could overtake the Blue Jays for the final wild card spot (though they could), but instead with a good deal of fighting spirit in the hopes that this series offers the Blue Jays their first opportunity to truly secure, at worst, the final wild card spot (which, as you may have heard, is a sneaky-good one).  

KS

2022 Game One-Hundred-Thirty-One: Blue Jays 4, Pirates 1

 

the ballpark in Pittsburgh is every bit as lovely as they say

Seven pitchers sounds like a lot, even for "a bullpen day," doesn't it? And yet, an unmitigated success by any reasonable standard: two scoreless innings from the opener Trevor Richards were followed by just one run over two-and-a-third from Yusei Kikuchi (whom we love and support), which took us into the fifth inning. One run, into the fifth? You'd happily take that from pretty much any of your starters, wouldn't you? Yimi came in and, unsurprisingly, was utterly nails throughout not just the remainder of the fifth but all of the sixth as well, which meant Cimber for the seventh, first Bass (who struggled slightly) and then Mayza (to help him) for the eighth, and a clean ninth (two strikeouts!) for Jordon Romano. All the while, Bo Bichette continues to find his swing: two more hits, and actually two for George Springer, who had low-key (in that it had largely escaped my notice) been slumping hard (something like oh-for-nineteen). But really, it was Bo's deeply impressive ten-pitch at-bat in the seventh, his bases-clearing double, that was the singular moment from this game (Chapman working a walk from a 1-2 count to load the bases: also clutch). When Bo can see the slider low and away, and lay off it, or flick it into the seats, he goes from being a good hitter to being a great hitter, and I am not saying that to be like "it is so obvious and also easy to take those and he should just take those because it is so obvious and also easy!" because that is not how I feel about it at all; I just mean that, when you see Bo take a couple of those sliders early in the count, then look the heck out, everybody. Look. The heck. Out (everybody). 

KS  

2022 Game One-Hundred-Thirty: Blue Jays 4, Pirates 0

 

there she bo's (goes)

Even though it was the eighth inning, Alek Manoah pleaded most pleadingly with John Schneider to stay in for at least one more batter: "I got this guy," he could be seen to say, and to obviously believe with all sincerity. John Schneider had already signaled for Tim Mayza, though, who struck out a pair to end the inning, which set the stage for Adam Cimber's clean ninth. As pleasing as all of that was, how much more pleasing that that, even, to think that Bo Bichette might be getting legitimately hot: his two-run home run in the ninth inning (to go along with a single and double earlier) in a game the Blue Jays were already winning was a much bigger deal than one might think at first glance, in that it took a 2-0 game to 4-0, and so it meant the truly high-leverage late-inning guys (Yimi, Romano) had another day off, and became options for Saturday's super-looming "bullpen day" in which the rôle of the opener falls to . . . Trevor Richards. I am staunchly pro-opener, though, as you will perhaps recall! In that it manifests the strategies of simulation baseball into the primary world of our experience! Let's go! 

KS

2022 Game One-Hundred-Twenty-Nine: Cubs 7, Blue Jays 5

 

that ball's in

"It looked like the Blue Jays might get out of this third inning without the leadoff triple coming in to score, but that turned out not to be the case at all," were words spoken by Buck Martinez as things in the early going went from bad to worse. Not a great start from Mitch White, and though the bullpen picked him up admirably, the Cubs early lead proved non-surmountable despite home runs from Cavan Biggio (a two-run shot to the second deck!) and Alejandro Kirk (a great big three-run dinger to left). The Blue Jays brought George Springer to the plate as the tying run in the bottom of the ninth, which was a pretty exciting thing to do, but he popped unthrillingly to third to end the game, and did not seem wild about it. And so we must content ourselves with the series win, rather than the series sweep, which, combined with the various action(s) on the out-of-town scoreboard, leaves the Blue Jays precisely two games out of the top wild card spot, and no less precisely two games ahead of Baltimore, who continue to play disturbingly well in the first non-playoff position. Actually, after the Thursday off-day, that might have changed a little, I'm going to go ahead and check that real quick . . . ah yes well Baltimore won again, and so the Blue Jays now sit a scant game-and-a-half ahead of the Orioles with thirty-three games to play, with something like twenty-eight of them against Baltimore directly (this is emotionally if not literally true). And that's fine, really: if you can't win, or at least split, a bunch of September games against the Orioles, then I guess you probably shouldn't get to go to the playoffs ahead of the Orioles in October! It all seems reasonable, and yet worrying. I saw a post the other day that noted that this is only the eighth time in their forty-six seasons that the Blue Jays have entered September in a playoff position, and I think the intent of that message was "so enjoy it everybody!" but mostly it just made me kind of tense? In any case, on to Pittsburgh, where we will all enjoy an uncommonly beautiful ballpark and some pleasantly early start-times.

KS

2022 Game One-Hundred-Twenty-Eight: Blue Jays 5, Cubs 3

 

oh hi

Once the returning (and warmly received) Marcus Stroman's fine start was out of the way, the Blue Jays went to town on the Chicago bullpen to a very pleasing extent, just as I had wished for in SMS text messages exchanged with brother-in-law: Vladdy's solo home run to the opposite field in the seventh paired nicely with Téo's similarly opposite-field three-run home run in the sixth, and that's pretty much all that was needed to go with Kevin Gausman's solid outing and some fairly tidy work by the bullpen (only David Phelps struggled a little). Now that the series has been won, there is very little reason, as I see it, not to sweep it, and several very compelling reasons, I hope you will agree, to do so (I need not enumerate them).   

KS

2022 Game One-Hundred-Twenty-Seven: Blue Jays 5, Cubs 4 (F/11)

 

a wonderful scene except for those uniforms

The Blue Jays have actually done reasonably well in extra-inning games this season, but nevertheless I remain convinced that every game that goes into the tenth is an automatic loss, no matter how often I am disproven. Danny Jansen's eleventh-inning walk-off single, which "plated" the faster-than-you-might-think Matt Chapman, was another blow to this core belief of mine. It was, we should note, the fourth run he drove in on the night, what with the three-run home run of several innings previous. Hey also, do you know who was utterly nails in two innings of work, indeed the final two innings of the whole entire game? That's right, Yimi Garcia, who joined Romano, Cimber, Bass, and Mayza in scoreless relief of José Berríos, who, for his part, pitched into the sixth but gave up four runs on ten hits (a lot of soft contact, in fairness -- he got BABIP'd, as much as anything). Altogether, quite a night! 

KS