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| hey great job Max Scherzer though |
Before Luis Urías doubled home Andrés Giménez to tie the game at one in the bottom of the eighth, the closest the Blue Jays had come to scoring all afternoon was in the previous inning, in which George Springer's one-out triple (a triple! from George Springer! a little misplayed by all-time Name Guy Lars Taylor-Tatsuji Nootbaar [榎田 達治 Enokida Tatsuji], sure, but still! perhaps his start in left field [just his second of the year, I believe] had George feeling youthful and fleet!) was stranded at third. I'm sure we all felt pretty good about things with Louis Varland taking the ball for the top of the ninth, but things went uncharacteristically imperfectly for 2026 Louis Varland: leadoff walks are always trouble, rarely more so than when they are followed by back-to-back singles to bring in the go-ahead run. But things looked okay from there: Alejandro Kirk made a great diving play to snag a bunt that had been popped up foul down the third base line (he had an infield single earlier [speed kills]), and a groundout to Okamoto at first (Vladdy was DHing on the day, though unsuccessfully, I'm afraid) had things looking swell enough as Lars Nootbaar (there he is again!) grounded to Luis Urías at second in routine fashion. But Urías yanked the throw to Okamoto's right (could Vladdy have snagged it? hard to say) to bring in another run and extend the inning long enough for Jordan Walker to single in another. So that's a four-run ninth, although just one of them was earned in Varland's two-thirds of an inning (Fluharty came in to get the lefty), for those of you calculating Louis' ERA along at home (it now stands at 1.11). Now that's a bummer of a ninth, after a pretty fun game! Max Scherzer, for his part, couldn't really have pitched much better: one run on four hits and a walk in six innings pitched, striking out five to either surpass or draw nearer Walter Johnson's spot on the all-time strikeout list, depending on who you trust more as concerns century-old strikeout totals (MLB and the Elias Sports Bureau? Or Baseball Reference? [make mine BR, I would hope it goes without saying]).
Pregnantly as all heck, the Blue Jays announced during the game that they had acquired thirty-four-year-old innings-eater/Baseball Canada WBC legend Jameson Taillon from the Cubs for a player to be named later and/or cash considerations, which would seem to completely confirm that the Blue Jays' expectation is that they'll be trading at least one starting pitcher between now and tomorrow evening. In order of likelihood, you'd have to rank them Gausman (one of the better starters available with Skubal and Peralta and Castillo already dealt), then Bieber (quite a bit behind that), and finally Scherzer (an ironclad no-trade situation), right? I guess we'll find out soon enough! Looks like the Blue Jays will be headed into the deadline four-and-a-half out, and about to set out on three brutal weeks (Houston, Chicago, New York, Tampa Bay), so the path is fairly clear, if not super duper fun. I'm sure we will find pleasant enough ways to pass the time though (like by watching baseball games and then talking about them, for instance).
KS
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