Blue Jays 6, Orioles 5: About As Much Fun As You Will Have Watching Baseball On A Friday Night Probably

 

Charles McAdoo in his Charles McAdébut

It certainly seemed as though our wild run of luck on bullpen days had finally come to an end, as poor Anthony Voth (I say "poor" in that he was DFA'd almost immediately after the game [baseball is just brutal]) got tagged for five runs in the three-and-a-third with which he was tasked after Adam Macko had quite finely opened. From there, though, everybody else just totally locked it down: Connor Seabold, Mason Fluharty, Braydon Fisher—all great! You will note, I'm sure, the absence of such names as Jeff Hoffman, Tyler Rogers, and Louis Varland, our seventh, eighth, and ninth-inning guys (more or less [though not quite] respectively), and that is because all three were unavailable due to having pitched in consecutive games previously (safety first, everybody). As for the bats, they really batted, in the fullness of time: a four-run seventh saw two-run shots from both Kazuma Okamoto and young Charles McAdoo (his first big league hit really was an especially good one), and the Blue Jays added two more in the eighth on an insanely clutch two-run double from a fired-up Vladdy (two for four on the night!). I would also like to note that Daulton Varsho not only doubled but also tripled (the best kind of hit there is, æsthetically), and made two lovely grabs in centre, getting much better jumps than he has in recent weeks. And there is an explanation! In order to turn and start more quickly towards balls hit over either shoulder, Varsho has taken to getting set before each pitch with his feet turned slightly outwards, kind of like a duck, as Dan Shulman reports Varsho to explained have it, which I absolutely love first as a coach who, like all other coaches in all times and places, has to talk to his athletes about opening their hips like pretty much all the time, but also, and much, much more importantly, as a detail that pulls the primary world of our experience closer to that utopia (literally the eutópos, "the no place") envisioned by and set forth in ソフトボール天国 Softobōru Tengoku (literally Softball Heaven [if you even dare dream it]—box art here, game footage here, both courtesy of the noble Nate Edwards and his essential 30-30 Club [watch his fairly recent presentation to the SABR Games and Simulation Committee here]). Thank you for this gift, Daulton Varsho.

KS