Blue Jays 5, Nationals 2: A Fairly Merry Affair

 

imagine how hard Louis Varland could throw a glove at you

Trey Yesavage held the highest-scoring team in baseball to just one run on three hits and three walks, and pitched deep into the seventh, before handing things off to Tyler Rogers, who really could not pitch more differently (just about totally underhand, like weirdly so, as opposed to just about totally overhand, like weirdly so), and ultimately to Louis Varland, who, competing against his older brother Gus's squad (Gus has bounced around a bit, but is a National these days), pitched another six-out save as though that were no big deal at all to do (his ERA is now down to 0.98 on the season [his WHIP is tastefully and tastily below one, these days, too {0.95}]). The Nationals, as mentioned, are baseball's highest scoring team this year, while the Blue Jays, if you can believe it, are actually baseball's lowest! Haha! Nobody expected that I bet! Headed into a season full of promise! In a way, I suppose, we could take a little bit of comfort in the admittedly dark reality of that strange fact, at least going forward: had the Blue Jays only been even the twenty-fifth team in baseball, say, in terms of runs scored, rather than the thirtieth, I bet they'd have turned that into three or four or even five more wins, probably, right? Which would have made them a team still very much sticking around and looking to add at the trading deadline, rather than one much more likely to (not to be dramatic about it) send guys that we like away from us forever? This augers at least slightly well enough for next year, is all I mean to say, in that it's deeply unlikely we'll hit quite this badly again, even if we were to just go ahead with literally all the same guys just one year older (which of course will not be the whole of the approach; there will be at least a little nuance). The Blue Jays managed five runs today, though, which you would always take, even if it was achieved (as it indeed was!) with really quite a number of fortuitous bounces and clanks and near misses. It was a very merry twelve-hit showing, but not a thunderous kind of twelve-hit showing, you know? But beggars, I have read, cannot be choosers, and we have been begging these guys to score, so let's not fuss about the specifics now that it's happening a bit (fourteen runs in the three-game series! let's go!). 

Regrettably for me personally, it looks like an off-day tomorrow (I'm sure the team is relatively okay with it), and then it's three against the Cardinals at home in Toronto for what is sure to be a strange weekend of roster comings and, mostly, goings. Our scheduled starters are Dylan Cease on Friday, Kevin Gausman for Saturday, and Max Scherzer Sunday, but aside from that first one, it's really anybody's guess how things actually shake out. We'll know soon enough, I suppose. 

KS