 |
| first of many |
After the Blue Jays swept the poorlier and poorlier Colorado Rockies—scoring forty-five runs on sixty-three hits along their exceedingly merry way—there were two lightly disappointing losses last weekend against the mighty and largely unmindable Dodgers. I say only lightly disappointing, in that one's baseball happiness cannot really be permitted to hinge on whether or not you beat the Dodgers, or else there will be precious little baseball happiness to be had at all, right? But right after that, like even before the Blue Jays left Los Angeles even, there came what was, I'm pretty sure, their best win of the year so far, a 5-4 Sunday afternoon comeback win on the strength of late home runs from Vladdy, Barger, and finally Ernie Clement. After Jeff Hoffman almost incomprehensibly walked five batters in just two-thirds of an inning of work (a new one to me, I think), the peerlessly-named and well-sweepered Mason Fluharty struck out Shohei Ohtani and got a groundout from Mookie Betts (both of these occurrences occurrencing with the bases loaded, mind you) to end just a tremendous back-and-forth game. It really was quite a thrill! From there, two-out-of-three at home against the very fine Chicago Cubs in front of huge crowds (even on Thursday afternoon!), in which Hoffman got right back on the horse and, whilst ahorse, struck out all kinds of guys. And then! And then! Guys guys guys it happened! Just last night! It really happened! By which I mean: Alejandro Kirk stole a base! For the first time ever! And almost certainly the last! It was seemingly a broken hit-and-run, runners on first and third, in which Myles Straw swung through strike three, and nobody really covered second base, so there you go; that's literally all it takes. It is notable too, I suppose, that Kirk had previously homered in the seventh to bring the Blue Jays back into a game that Jacob De Grom had made pretty difficult for them up to that point, and that, in the eighth, Kirk also knocked in Vladdy and Bo to put the Blue Jays ahead for the first time in the game (and permanently, because Hoffman is rolling now), but the main thing is that Alejandro Kirk now has the literally highest possible career stolen base percentage, surpassing by far, for example, say, Lou Brock, or Rickey Henderson. To mark this lofty feat, Vladdy snagged the actual literal physical base at the earliest opportunity, like immediately after the final out, and presented it to Kirk, who had already been standingly-ovated over this delightful turn of events. What a fun time! Everybody loved it! And then just this afternoon and early evening, in fact at this the very hour of our composition, Myles Straw, of all people (eight career home runs in his nearly seven-hundred games played headed into today) homered twice as the Blue Jays beat the Rangers 14-2. They keep coming up with fun new stuff, these 2025 Toronto Blue Jays, and it's really great! Long may it remain more or less so!
KS
