Blue Jays 3, Nationals 2: Scherzmaxxing As Long As We're Able

 

hey happy birthday! I remember forty-two!

Despite the Washington Nationals fielding a fine young team this season, and one that's been particularly good in particularly exciting ways (leading both leagues in runs scored and, better yet, in a way, stolen bases, amongst a host of other things), it was a fairly thin crowd on hand Monday night. A persistently audible portion of them chanted "U-S-A" as things wore on, which is very clever of them, as the Blue Jays do in fact play their home games in Toronto, a city which is in indeed part of country that is not the United States of America, but instead another country altogether; they're quite right. In fairness, it isn't until Tuesday that the Nationals are asking that fans "[j]oin [them] in celebrating Canada-US Friendship Day," in which the team is offering "an exclusive Canada-US Friendship hat," so until then I guess it is just the regular, default, ongoing, Baseless Antipathy Towards Allies and Partners Day at Nationals Park. When not busy lowest-common-denominatoring, the Washington crowd did take a moment to acknowledge that Max Scherzer, on the mound for the Blue Jays after a recent successful rehab appearance in Buffalo, had been a wonderful player for them for seven years, and is, when you check, actually the best non-Expo in the whole of those teams' joint history (and even then, it's only Gary Carter, Tim Raines, Andre Dawson [Hall of Famers all, much as Scherzer will be] and the unsung-but-excellent Steve Rogers ahead of him). 

And in this, first start back in kind of a while, Scherzer pitched more or less like someone doing so on their forty-second birthday, which this very much was (hey happy birthday): his seventy-five pitches took him nearly through the third, having allowed just one run, somehow, on four hits and three walks, striking out four along the way (oh that's how he got away with it). I suppose my hope for Max Scherzer right now is that he pitches well enough for a pleasant time to be had by all, but not so well that he becomes a compelling trade target in these final days before the deadline? It would be nice for him to stick around to wrap things up, even if that means more or less making his starts bullpen days, as this one more or less was, in that it had Spencer Miles and everything (in which "everything" is Fluharty, Macko, Rogers, Hoffman [who struck out three; his slider was dancing, and his splitter wasn't far off], Rogers, and Varland.) 

As for the bats, Luis Urias—who is somehow the easiest guy on the roster to forget is on the roster, even though he's played genuinely well when he's been in there—homered in the third, the same inning in which Ernie Clement doubled home Myles Straw's previous double; and in the next (the fourth, for those of you scoring along at home), Straw singled home Okamoto, who had stolen second. That's right! Kazuma Okamoto! Whose 日本野球機構 Nippon Yakyū Kikō single-season high in stolen bases is "three," a number achieved when he was a much younger man, a total that will perhaps not be threatened this year, or in any of those to follow, should he/we be spared (asked about his first MLB stolen base, Kaz responded simply, "I am fast"). Maybe the stolen base, generally, was just in the air, given the Nationals' excellence in this regard? The Nats grabbed four on the night, and it didn't even seem like a big deal for them. And actually Vladdy very nearly stole home, if somewhat indirectly, on a broken first-and-third situation in which George Springer left early and was hung up between first and second, gesticulating wildly for Vladdy to try to scurry home before Springer was inevitably cornered. The replay certainly seemed to suggest Vladdy swam his hand around promising Name Guy Keibert Ruiz's tag, but the call on the field had been out (I get it), and in such cases the replay centre requires incontrovertible evidence to overturn the call (I get it [I actually really like the nuance that calls can come back from replay centre not only as "confirmed" or "overturned," but also as "the call stands," which is a softer, epistemologically crucial third option, one that signals an admirably honest engagement with experience]). Oh hey I should note, too, that Vladdy's double last night brings him into a tie with the late great Tony Fernandez for eighth place on the Blue Jays' list of all-time leaders for extra-base hits (just a fantastic kind of hit, I'm sure you will agree). Just look at this great list of excellent guys whom (pardon me, whomst) we have enjoyed so much:

1. Carlos Delgado 690

2. Vernon Wells 592

3. José Bautista 519

4. George Bell 471

5. Lloyd Moseby 451

6. Joe Carter 449

7. Edwin Encarnación 445

8. Tony Fernandez 423

8. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. 423

10. Jesse Barfield 368

May I confess to you which names I was surprised to see appear where they do on this list? Is that an intimacy you will allow me? It's not too much? You're sure? Okay good: perhaps I have a([n] indefensible) centre-fielders-who-rake blindspot of some kind, but I almost certainly wouldn't have guessed Lloyd Moseby as high as fifth, and there is no way I would have had Vernon Wells trailing only Carlos Delgado, despite my significant enthusiasm for him both as a player and as an unusually thoughtful post-playing person (it may not surprise you to learn that I currently have a maxed-out friendship rating with Vernon Wells in the remarkably wholistic "MLB Life" portion of the inimitable MLB Power Pros 2008, part of the peerless パワフルプロ野球 Powafuru Puro Yakyū series [ongoing six-part {so far!} retrospective series here], as emulated seamlessly [though the baseball in it have seams, admittedly {wordplay}] on my phone . . . and maybe yours too, should you wish it? it's easier to do than you might think!).

We have strayed off course a little here, but to bring us back, finally, to last night's totally pleasing win, let us note how after Louis Varland appeared to have ended the game with a called third strike on a breaking ball which Luis García Jr. rightly challenged and had overturned (the Nationals had two on, the tying run standing at second), Varland then elected to blow a 101 MPH four-seam fastball (I like to say "cross-seam" fastball, not just because it is old-fashioned, but because it is more inclusive of those who throw the pitch despite tiny hands [we all start somewhere]) just completely by him—just completely by him—which feels like a truly liberating option to have at one's disposal. Imagine it!   

KS