Padres 8, Blue Jays 7: A Ludicrous Affair

 

I do so enjoy when Vladdy gets one

What comforts might a late-night, losing baseball game offer the beleaguered sufferer of a pretty standard yet lightly dispiriting summer cold? Kind of a lot of pretty good ones, as it turns out, as this game was really a lot of fun, despite it ending (late!) very much against my broader interests, with Padres' closer Mason Miller touching 103MPH to secure the final outs (when you hear them mention that Miller's four-seam fastball averages 101.3MPH, you start asking yourself some questions). Long before we got there, both starting pitchers had just a brutal night (early evening, really), with neither making it so far as even the third inning. In a way, it's weird that this game only ended up with a combined fifteen runs: there were sixteen hits, which is plenty, but seventeen walks on top of that (nobody, it must be said, reached on a hit-by-pitch [stay safe out there, everybody]). For the Blue Jays, the big blows came from young Jonatan Clase (pronounced Clasé [or like the level of baseball he will never play again {perhaps a rehab assignment}]), whose recent interest in home runs rules (he is an insanely welcome smooth-fielding site in the outfield, too, after a half-season of Jésus Sanchez and Yohendrick Piñango, both of whom seem very nice, but whose gifts are not well suited to either corner outfield position) and Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who well and truly launched a three-run homer as part of the kind of two-for-four-with-a-walk night we all hope to see many more of as summer deepens. It's an objectively great kind (of deepening summer night).

Just one game to go, then, before the All-Star break, and an end to what we all agree to call "the first half" despite it containing as many ninety-eight games for some teams (not quite for us, but still: ninety-six! just sixty-six to go when we're all back!). That we remain within sight of a postseason spot (just a game-and-a-half out) despite our fairly shabby, sub-.500 record remains a lightly miraculous/pretty charming statistical quirk, but one I don't think we should push too hard at, maybe? Perhaps we could find a different path? It'll be Kevin Gausman on the mound today, and he has always seemed a seeker. 

KS