Toronto 7, Atlanta 2: "Atlanta'll Tell You Bout My Run[s scored in excess of those scored by my opponent], Know What I'm Sayin'" (Drake Reference)

 

Yohendrick Piñango is for the people

Baseball being baseball, the Blue Jays' only win in Atlanta this time around came against future Hall-of-Famer Chris Sale, whilst we ran out to the mound (amongst others, certainly) Chad Dallas aka "The Dad Chalice" (if we all try real hard we can make this happen) in his major-league début. The Blue Jays actually managed sixteen hits on the night, which is a tonne, ten of them coming off of Chris Sale himself, beginning with a leadoff double from the still-struggling George Springer. He hasn't been good, George Springer, and although nobody expected him to follow his 2025 performance—in which he was arguably the third best hitter in baseball behind Judge and Ohtani, and fairly memorably hit a three-run homer of some import in Game Seven of the ALCS—with anything remotely comparable in this, his age thirty-six season, he is at an OPS of just .636 (OPS+ of 74, wRC+ of 80), and so has been significantly below league average, which is "a tough look" from one designated to hit. It's to the point where, were he not beloved veteran George Springer in the final year of his contract, I don't think he'd necessarily be seeing a whole lot of plate appearances against right-handed pitching at all, and those plate appearances would likely fall instead to young Yohendrick Piñango, whose left-handed bat has performed admirably, but whose fielding is akin to, though I acknowledge is not literally, terrorism. Hey, you know who had a good night, though, of all people, was Myles Straw, who knocked in three with a pair of hits, and Tyler Heineman, who did nearly as well (as well). If we're getting five runs off the bats of Straw and Heinemen, this team is unstoppable! Vladdy, for his part, went three-for-five with a double and a couple runs scored, notching his third hit of the night just as a small but discernible group of deplorables had switched their "U.S.A" chants (yes, it's true, the Toronto Blue Jays play largely in Canada; yes, Vladdy is a Montréal-born Dominicano, that's true) to "Overrated" (it depends on how you feel he's rated, I suppose, but a five-time All-Star with MVP votes in four seasons coming off of arguably the finest October in the history of baseball means you've got to rate him somewhere)—that they were not visibly "tomahawk chopping" at the time, though, is perhaps a minor, temporary win for human dignity (who can say?). Vladdy's batting average is back up to .300, with what we might call a "B+" OPS (conveniently, OPS scales almost perfectly not just with runs scored, but with post-secondary academic grades) of .782, split perfectly between a truly tasty OBP (or OBA, should you wish to keep with the old ways) of .391 and a Slugging mark (it isn't even remotely a percentage! it's range is 0 to 4! come on!) of that same .391, which you would definitely like to see come up a little. Perhaps on account of dingers? Against, perhaps, the Baltimore Orioles, who are up next? We're just a half-game out of the Wild Card spots! Despite winning just one of our last five! Everyone else is still a little bad, too! Let's go! 

KS