Blue Jays 5, Red Sox 4: Ricky Romero Yeeeeeeaaaaaahhhhhhh

No big deal.

Ricky Romero, who is awesome even when he isn't particularly awesome, allowed but three earned runs in eight innings in Fenway yesterday, and Adam Loewen (yeah, Adam Loewen!) came through with a big hit late to put the Blue Jays on top 5-4. Romero, who you know is good but who you do not fully appreciate, is now 15-10 with a 3.02 ERA, despite pitching in a hitter's park with some pretty brutal defense behind him in the toughest division in baseball. As Jerry Howarth pointed out when he was shooting from the gd hip on the Jeff Blair show yesterday, the Blue Jays really only have one-and-a-half reliable starters heading into next season: Romero is the real deal, and Morrow is kind of almost OK sometimes, so, yeah, there's your 1.5. I'm feeling pretty good about Henderson Alvarez, but he's clearly a back-end-of-the-rotation kind of guy, right? I completely agree with my mainest man Jerry that Anthopolous needs to find some arms this winter. There's been a lot of speculation about the Blue Jays making a big play for Yu Darvish -- especially with AA's recent scouting trip to Japan -- and much hand-wringing on the blogs about paying the huge posting fee and everything, but who cares? Definitely, definitely not me. Whatever, man, the ghost of Ted Rogers is loaded, let's spend some. It's what he would have wanted, probably. (Note that he would not have wanted that.) 


Anyway, this closes out the season series against the Red Sox. The Blue Jays went 8-10, which I'll take, given that Boston is legitimately good, and Toronto pretty much isn't. This is fine. It is not fine, however, that there are now less than two weeks remaining in the regular season. I find that quite unacceptable, actually. Where do the days go? Tell me. 

Oh yeah also: Brett Lawrie slammed into Varitek at the plate yesterday, and Varitek totally lived up to his almost impossibly hard last name, held on, and sent Lawrie out of the game with . . . a contusion. 

yerrrrrrrrrrrrr (by which I mean Brett Lawrie) out

INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT UPDATE SERIOUSLY I CAN'T BELIEVE HOW IMPORTANT THIS IS: the collision at home in .gif form, via Drunk Jays Fans via The Blue Jay Hunter via Some Guy with NESN I Guess:








KS

Blue Jays 6, Orioles 5: You Called Down the September Call-up Thunder? Well now you've got it.

Are you . . . Loewen it?

Dustin McGowan probably dreamed that his first start in the big leagues in three years would go a little better than four runs on three innings, but whatever, it's pretty remarkable that he made it back at all. The crowd gave him a nice ovation as he left the field, and were pretty clearly angling for the ol' tip-o'-the-cap, but McGowan wouldn't do it, which is kind of awesome: yes, he's clearly thrilled to be back, but now that he is back, he's not going to act like four runs in three innings is going to get it done, and he wasn't about to tip his cap after he'd walked the last two, because he had been, in his own estimation, kind of horseshit. And good for him, you know? Good for him.

Another late-inning comeback yesterday, this one down 5-3 in the seventh. Pacific Coast League batting champ David Cooper led off with a home run, and, after J. P. Arencibia flied out to the wall, Adam Loewen homered to centre to tie it up. When Jose Bautista singled in Mike McCoy's double later in the inning, the day was won! Hurrah!  

KS