Blue Jays 7, Phillies 5 (F/11): Free Baseball (As Is Sometimes Said About Extra Innings)

 

with a skip in our step

Headed into the bottom of the sixth, everything had gone swimmingly, indeed perhaps beyond swimmingly: Vladdy had homered in the first (yay) and singled in another run in the third, and Max Scherzer had not only matched but overtaken Walter Johnson (they called him "The Big Train" [they also called him "Barney," which would be more functional conversationally]) for tenth place on the list of all-time strikeout leaders (like in all of Major League Baseball ever, since the start of it). Things unraveled pretty quickly from there, though, as Trea Turner and Bryce Harper hit back-to-back home runs, and Spencer Miles had little luck in relief, dinged for a further two runs on three hits as he closed out that troubled and troubling inning. But Andrés Giménez drew us even in the eighth, doubling home both Vladdy and Springer, and knocked in another in the ninth (little guy, bit hits?). Nathan Lukes' two-run homer in the eleventh was the game winner in the end, and the glory is rightly his, but how about that bullpen, too: after Spencer Miles' troubles, it went Waldron (knuckleballs!), Fisher, Varland for two, and finally Lazaro Estrada, of all people, with the first save of his career. Things have gotten pretty spirited around here lately! It may very well be too late in the summer, with the Blue Jays too far back, for any of this to amount to much in terms of actually catching up to anybody, but this has been a really, really fun week of baseball. Playoff implications? Who can say? But the implications for my enjoyment have been immediate and considerable.

KS