ALCS Game 3: Blue Jays 13, Mariners 4

ah, the cat's light . . .

Setting aside, for a moment, the Blue Jays' thirteen runs on eighteen hits last night—which is a pretty strong topic, and one to which we will for sure return—how about Shane Bieber? That first inning was a little shaky, I will grant you, with the walk, two-run homer, and then the double, too, but if ever anyone has "settled in" after "early jitters," this was like an archetypal instance of that. Bieber allowed just those two runs on four hits through six innings (eight strikeouts, one walk), and looked like he could have gone a little deeper, too, if so called, but why push it with the guy who lines up to be the game-seven starter, should we be spared? To the bats, though, the sweet, sweet bats: Andres Gimenez's two-run homer (he homingly homered home Ernie Clement, who continues to hit closer to .500 than you might even think) to tie it up was as welcome as it was unlikely (Gimenez confessed after the game that he was just trying to hit something to the right side to move Ernie, who had doubled, over to third); Vladdy's extreme double off the wall set the stage perfectly for Daulton Varsho's similar double with the bases loaded a few batters later; and from there, everybody just starting launching taters throughout the stadier: Springer, Vladdy (who was four-for-four, his last double looking like he could have tried to stretch it for the cycle), Kirk (three-run shot!), Addison Barger . . . it turned out to be another true romp in what has become, seven games in, one of the top offensive performances in the history of the Major League Baseball postseason (by any number of measures, but you can just keep it simple with OPS, which would has the 2025 Blue Jays safely within the top ten). Pretty good! That all of this happened—or the most significant portion of it, rather, the real game-deciding part—against the very fine George Kirby is all the more impressive (there were some low-leverage guys used later, as you would expect). Tonight's task is realistically a good deal taller, in that it is Luis Castillo (and just his whole cool style) on the mound for the Mariners (I wanted us to land him from the Reds so hard; why were my entreaties rebuffed [less in word than in deed]?), while we are going with first-time-in-a-month Max Scherzer, who, at this late stage of his sure-thing Hall-of-Fame career, is generally understood to be a semi-animated skeleton of some kind. Do not mistake me: I am into it, and the potential for glory here, should Scherzer even manage to get through the lineup once without major incident, is substantial. But is this less a Max Scherzer start than perhaps a bullpen day (aren't they pretty much all, though, I suppose, in the final analysis?) in which Max Scherzer is the actant performing the rôle of l'ouvreur? I'm sure the goal for Max Scherzer, personally, is to slice these guys up three times through the order and maybe hand off the ball for the ninth if his pitch count is getting up there a little, but I think the more level-headed team goal is probably two wins out of these three games in Seattle, right, so that game six and indeed perhaps game seven can follow in Toronto? And so it's Scherzer tonight, and, though nothing has been announced beyond that, you'd think Gausman in what we might as well assume will be the first of three must-win games after that, with Yesavage and Bieber to follow? I really can't think of any other way they could play it, but I am open to the possibility that I am not thinking super clearly about any of this, other than thinking about how this clearly rules. 

KS