Blue Jays 9, Giants 3: See Now That's Much Better

 

a Vlad of the people

The top of the first inning was a little dispiriting, and along familiar lines: after Ernie Clement singled and Nathan Lukes walked, Vladdy grounded into an easy double play on a first-pitch sinker that caught really quite a lot of the plate, exactly the kind of pitch he at least somewhat obliterates when things are going well. But, instead, we stood just one Kazumo Okamoto groundout short of scorelessness, and that's totally all Kaz managed, and so ended the inning. "Oh dear, not again," one might well have remarked, and had they indeed remarked it, they would have found their plea very much heard and met kindly, in that the Blue Jays would string together an improbable number of hits across the second and third innings, highlighted by a three-run homer from young Jonathan Clase, a speedy switch-hitter who can play all three outfield positions (Yohendrick Pinango has been sent down, as George Springer returns from the paternity list [congratulations!]). Spencer Miles, who seems to have graduated from "bulk guy behind the opener" to "we might as well just start him," allowed two runs on seven hits through four; Patrick Corbin allowed a double and single for a run in the fifth but then got the next seven outs, no problem at all; and actually Hoffman (let's go), Fluharty, and Varland each got all of their guys just totally right in a row, lickety as split can be. There was very little not to like! Vladdy singled, scored, and kind of knocked in the Blue Jays' ninth run, too, in the sense that a runner scored from third as he grounded into his second double play of the night, but RBIs (RsBI) are not credited on GIDPs (GsIDP), which is I suppose fair (in that nobody is up there going for a SAC GIDP to bring the run home), unless that age-old scoring principle is applied to Vladdy at a time when he could use the help, at which time (the present) I lightly object (that "run" was plainly "batted in," Official Scorekeeper; you are not going to hustle me in this regard). 

And so the series wraps this afternoon, with a completely agreeable 3:45PM first pitch Atlantic Time, which occurs to me is a pretty wild 11:45AM start in San Francisco. That Dylan Cease will take mound for the Blue Jays is the good news; that the Giants will answer with Logan Webb is, as I see it, the bad. It would be pretty to sweet to take the series, though, and I hope that, in pursuit of this goal, everybody does their best.

KS