Orioles 4, Blue Jays 3: Not Yet Mathematically Cooked (And Yet Cooked)

 

that's right

Among the many things that have changed throughout my forty-or-so years of baseball interest (but who's counting [haha I'm very old!]), the use of relief pitchers (and their "relief pitching") certainly ranks fairly high as far as the overall impact on the game goes, probably; I do not think this would constitute even a lukewarm take, would it? Within that broad category of bullpen usage, and the several changes attendant thereto, one difference that seems fairly minor compared to some others, I would say, is how the modern manager is loath to deploy the same reliever three days in a row, lest both efficacy and indeed elbow-non-explosion be risked somewhat. Only in rare circumstances—like, say, you were by necessity in a "win-out" approach in a last-ditch effort to snag a postseason spot in the final week of the season—would the modern manager likely deploy even the heartiest reliever three days in a row. And so it was that John Schneider sent the steadfast Tyler Rogers (who, if you go to FanGraphs at all, has been even better than you probably think this season) to the mound Monday night in Baltimore, his third appearance in as many days, and so it was that baseball's most loveable doofus Pete Alonso (this video of how nice he was to the guys who caught his three-hundredth home run is so nice, like just insanely nice) hit his second home-run of the night, this time a two-run homer to give Baltimore a lead (for the first time all night!) in the bottom of the eighth. A drag, from the perspective of this Blue Jays partisan! And all of it happened later than it otherwise might have on account of a fairly significant rain delay, which made the experience even more "oh fine" than it would have seemed at a more reasonable hour. The rain, or more specifically the rain-soaked outfield, seems to have cost us everybody's new bestie Brett Bateman, too, temporarily at least, as he went down in a heap after sliding awkwardly to make a hard-charging catch (you'd have sworn it was his knee, but apparently the brunt of it was borne by his hip, which to me is a terrible body part to injure, because it happens rarely enough that part of the problem one experiences in addition to the discomfort is also the disbelief that it is your hip, of all things, that is hurting this much ["no, it's my freakin' hip," one can sometimes be heard to remark {about it} in such circumstances]). The rains kept coming, too, moving Tuesday night's came to Wednesday afternoon, as part of a doubleheader that is actually just getting underway at this, our present moment of composition. If the Blue Jays lose either game today (or if a few other things happen, none of them esoteric or obscure), that will be a wrap, officially, on the long sought-after WC3, but I am totally ready for it; you will perhaps recall that I have already started the Samsung Note that implicitly concedes defeat (to the White Sox, specifically, but to the universe more broadly, too). Max Scherzer today, though! Let's enjoy it! He's so weird!    

KS