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