Guardians 8, Blue Jays 6: Scherzing Sub-Maximally

 

I share José Ramirez's concern for Nathan Lukes
and his benighted hamstring

Pinch-hitter/living-lesson-in-contingency Eloy Jimenez came to the plate as the potential winning run with two on in the bottom of the ninth, and even though rather than homering for a walk-off win, he instead extremely grounded into a double play, this was nevertheless far more than I'd anticipated from this game once Max Scherzer, who came into things needing just one more strikeout to reach thirty-five hundred in his first-ballot Hall-of-Fame Career, instead struck out precisely none, and instead allowed five run in the first, and seven total in just two-and-a-third innings. The bullpen, though, turned in a low-key mighty effort (Mantiply to Miles to Nance to Fluharty to Fisher), and the bats batted admirably, led by Kazuma Okamoto, who walked, singled, and hit a towering home run to "the deepest part of the ballpark," as we so often say of straightaway centre field (find me a part that's deeper! unless your park is weird!). This was, on the whole, a far more pleasant evening of baseball than I'd expected after the top of the first, that's for sure! Or after the very first batter of the bottom half of that same inning, I should mention: Nathan Lukes ripped a double, but looked lightly hobbled as soon as he left the box, and sure enough, he's now on the IL with a hamstring strain that John Schneider described as "week to week," which sounds bad? In other roster news, which is I guess more usage news than roster news as such, Schneider (in conjunction with GM Ross Atkins [aka Ross the Boss]) also let it be known that Jeff Hoffman is not going to be used in the closer role (indeed rôle) going forward, and instead it will be more of a "closer by committee" approach (I bet the committee will be chaired by Louis Varland), while everyone remains open to the possibility that Hoffman can pitch his way back into high-leverage situations should his performance improve (and I bet it will, at least a little, if not enough to have him in tighter situations than Fisher or Rogers or Varland any time soon). Hoffman, who has always seemed like a good team guy, one who honestly might take more on his shoulders in his public comments than he probably even should, took it with a characteristically earthy grace. There are no villains here, just a guy whose mistakes are getting uncommonly crushed. This is a time for empathy.

KS