Blue Jays 6, Red Sox 1; Blue Jays 7, Red Sox 3; Blue Jays 15, Red Sox 7: Such Brooms

a faceful of safe actually

Clearly invigorated by the dullest ten-player trade in major league history, Aaron Laffey and my man Carlos Villanueva put together straight-up heroic stars on Friday and Saturday nights to put the Blue Jays in position to sweep away the significantly hated Boston Red Sox today, and holy shit did they ever. I put the game on the radio walking home from the gym this afternoon thinking it would probably be the end of the second, maybe, but no, it was still the top of the bat-around five-run first, which saw Brett Lawrie put the first pitch of the ballgame out of the park, apparently (I mean, this is what they told me, and on the radio that is all I have to go on). Big ups, perhaps the biggest, to Alan Ashby, who found it within himself to call nonsense on the safety squeeze even when it works, even as part of a ridiculous five-run start to a game in a series the Blue Jays had already one; Ashby was like, it worked here, but it often doesn't, and I just don't like that play. Ashby.


All kinds of zany doings in this one, with basically a million dingers, including one from Rajai, which was cool because he also just totally lost a ball in the sun (it was scored a double because baseball is hopeless which is part of its appeal frankly). Just a great big sloppy mess of a great time, in short. I would like to note two things in closing, the first of which is that today is Dave Steib's birthday, and he was an enormous asshole with a great moustache and a filthy slider and one of the best pitchers of the 1980s and a guy who lost no-hitters in the ninth in consecutive starts in absurd circumstances so happy 55th; the second is that even though the internet tells me he does not regularly do this, I am certain that Red Sox shortstop Michael Anthony Avilés came to the plate to "Dance Yourself Clean." Or maybe they were playing it because of something else or something. But I know what I heard, and I liked it.

So yeah, a sweep in Boston, and we're back to a mere three games out of the Wild Card. I have become pretty sure that the Blue Jays are going to hover around .500 and totally dick with my head for the remainder of this 2012 season. It'll be OK.


KS

Blue Jays 4, Royals 1: Joseph Batstista is The Best

high five high five high five high five high five high five high five

Yes, Kelly Johnson hit a solo shot, and Brandon Morrow pitched well enough into the seventh, even managing to strand runners, which is not something he seemed to do even once ever last season, but what I would like to focus on here is how Bruce Chen walked Johnson in the sixth and was probably like "well dang" because Bautista was due up next and then sure enough, next pitch, dinger. Loved it. Also acquitting himself beautifully tonight: Blue Jays colour guy Alan Ashby, who commented on Brandon Morrow throwing away a bunted ball, and he said something like, so that's a bunt single and an error to put a man on second, and had he made it all the way to third on that play all the moms would have really been cheering hard at the little league diamond, and it was like oh man burn. Finally, proving that I do not understand anything about our beloved sport, the word from Bautista himself is that he has been trying too hard to hit the ball to right, and he's decided he needs to just pull the shit out of everything, and sure enough, home run to left. This is the first piece of evidence we have that Jose Bautista knows more about hitting than I do, but even though it is but a single datum I think we should treat it seriously. 

KS

Blue Jays 1, Red Sox 0 (F/11): You Love Brett Lawrie. You Love Him.

Hey awesome it's Chris Woodward over there on the left!

It's only right that Geddy Lee was in his customary seat behind home plate on a day when Brett Lawrie sent everyone home happy with a walk-off home run in the eleventh, because he is awesome and so was this. And it is only fitting that Geddy Lee was not at all in his customary seat behind home plate, but in fact nowhere to be seen when that mighty wallop was indeed walloped, because this game took forever: the Red Sox insistence on dragging out every last god damned pitch has gotten to the point that Geddy can't take it anymore. That's how dire this situation has become: the way the Red Sox play baseball is too long and drawn-out for a guy who plays in Rush. 


It was a relief, of a kind, when Josh Beckett left the game early with an apparent leg strain or something. Sure there was going to be that massive delay that happens when a pitcher comes in from the bullpen completely cold to replace an injured starter and is given as long as he needs to warm up, but at least then things would start humming along after that, right? Well, they did, sort of, until Papelbon. Until Papelbon. For a minute there, and by a minute I actually mean about half an inning, it seemed like Blue Jays radio ace Alan Ashby was about to join Geddy, wherever he was. Ashby was so sick of Papelbon's shenanigans, you have no idea. Utterly disgusted, and completely unwilling to hide it in any way. Misses outside and I can't effing believe we're going to have to wait another eighty seconds before he throws again. (That is not a direct quotation or in fact a quotation of any kind.) The inning was only rescued for me by my wife's observation, "Papelbon jeans; boots with the fur." 


Anyway, Jerry Howarth noted about an inning before it happened that, with everything else that has gone Brett Lawrie's way in his brief time with the club, it's almost surprising that he had yet to get a walk-off hit of some kind. And then there we were, bottom of the eleventh, watching the ball sail out to centre, just below where there once was a restaurant called Windows but now there are only windows, an ideal finish to a nail-biter that saw five innings of shutout relief after the young arm of Henderson Alvarez went a scoreless six. If only Geddy had stuck it out . . . 


KS