NATS RISE TO GLORY game fourteen

A stupidly long baseball season is full of all sorts of moments, and some of those moments are brighter than others, which accumulate into a mental checklist of "moments". Those "moments" are in turn sorted through when a team actually makes a true and living Rise to Glory, for essential Moments. Thus in all the mundane minutes, you acquire:

moments < "moments" < Moments = Glory.

Last night's game against the Cardinals ended with what I will arbitrarily and with the self-important confidence of an internet person declare the Nationals first "moment" of this season. It was about what you'd expect from a Nationals/Cardinals game - plodding, crafty, threats never being realized. Don't forget this is the Cardinals franchise that not only defeated the Nats in the playoffs two years ago but punked them psychically and broke their spirit, which honestly they've never overcome yet in playoffs. It is a psychic albatross they will still have to cleanse themselves of. But it's a tie game going into extra innings, one of those 1-1 games that to a non-fan you'd go, "One to one? Fuck that." But if you like to sit around drinking cough syrup for leisure and listening to games on internet radio, it was classic baseballing. Top of the tenth, no runs (naturally). Bottom of tenth, two outs, and on comes Yunel Escobar, Cuban emigre to the U.S. to play the baseball, not long after Cuban/U.S. relations thawed for the first time in like half a century. First pitch, Escobar jacks over the fence for walk-off HR victory. The team of course is waiting to mob him at home plate as he rounds, as Cardinals pitcher sheepishly wanders off field, and instead of traditional leaping stomp of home for bearhugs from professional friends all around, Escobar slides headfirst into home, immediately mobbed by smiling faces raining Gatorade splashes in every direction. It was a "moment". It was a very small early season slice of psychic confidence against the team that punked them previously in long-term life. It was the Nationals first time reaching .500 this season. It was hopefully the first "moment" building towards even better Moments.
Nats are 7-7.

Blue Jays 6, Twins 2: So Lowly, These Twins

do you know who is lashing out over their bad start? it is only one of the three guys here

This one was A-OK: my main man Henderson Alvarez pitched seven strong, and Yunel Escobar went four-for-four with a walk, and everything was cool right from top of the first when the Blue Jays scored a pair. The poor Minnesota fans though, man. The Twins look like they're setting up to be bad for a pretty long while here. At least the ballpark is a honey, I guess.


Also, on The Baseball Today podcast earlier, Eric Karabell said that the more he thinks about the Vladimir Guerrero signing, the surer he becomes that Vladi will be batting fifth for the Blue Jays in the playoffs. I would enjoy that were it to occur!


KS

Orioles 6, Blue Jays 2 and Blue Jays 7, Orioles 2: Not Quite What I Had In Mind But Fine

:

Camden Yards: still somewhat OK

I have no problem with Yunel Escobar -- shortstops with .820 OPS are fine by me -- but he managed to pretty much single-handedly undue an excellent start by Brandon Morrow when he booted a potential double-play ball in the sixth inning Saturday night. But that's baseball. And yesterday was also baseball, you will be pleased to know! Ricky Romero allowed only two runs in his eight efficient innings of work, picking up his tenth win and lowering his ERA to 2.94, if I may cite two stats we don't pay nearly as much attention to as we used to but to which we still cling when they make dudes we like sound awesome. The Blue Jays hit a whack of doubles, E5 is streaking, and Brett Lawrie hit the first home run of his major league career. That is all really agreeable stuff to me. After an off day Monday, Oakland comes to town for three, and then it's the Angels, which, with the Blue Jays only 4.5 games behind Los Angeles for the playoff spot that will probably exist next year but which totally doesn't this year, doesn't actually matter more or less anything else. Except that I will enjoy those games extra because it is the Angels and Vernon will be back! Kind of a rough year for him, what with the .629 OPS and the negative WAR. Did you know he is owed $86 million over the next four years, and the Blue Jays are only on the hook for $5 million? Is that something you have heard about previously? Good for Vernon; good for the Blue Jays; Angels you guys are crazy man I love it.


KS

Blue Jays 2, Pirates 1: Squeak.

10 K is a pretty good amount of K

Brandon Morrow's ratio of Having Awesome Stuff : Being Good has been frustratingly, horrifyingly off so far this season, so it was just really great to see him fan ten and allow but a lone run in seven innings of four-hit (and three-walk, let us not hide from the truth) baseball. Eric Thames, who could totally be a player, hit his first career home run in the seventh, and Rajai who has been awful and Escobar hit back-to-back doubles and inning later, and we're good!  


Looking ahead, but only, like, six hours ahead, Brett Cecil makes his first start since being recalled from Triple A Las Vegas. You will recall that the reason for his demotion was that he was pitching badly. Perhaps he will be better now? 


KS

Blue Jays 5, Athletics 3, and the 2011 Toronto Blue Jays are probably the greatest collection of athletes ever assembled for anything (ever)

The price you pay for playing "ski" near a triple word score.

Jesse Litsch struck out seven over six-and-a-third, Snider blasted a three-run shot to put the Blue Jays out front for good, Scrabble pitched two strong in his new role, and Rauch sealed the deal. Aaron Hill even made an awesome play on a ball deflected off of Adam Lind's glove and got it over to Litsch just in time. This game owned, friends, it owned. If it wasn't for Escobar ending a three-for-three day by probably concussing himself sliding headfirst on a triple, I would be a man utterly without cares right now. As it stands, I must admit to some cares, but I am also thinking quite a lot about how the Blue Jays will now share top spot with the Baltimore Orioles atop the AL East should Neil's Tigers hold on tonight, and with the Rays and Red Sox continuing to lose at a nice clip, I don't think I'm being premature in speculating that the Blue Jays will hold at least a share of the AL East lead every day for the next six months. 


KS  


edited to add: OH YEAH, after E5 hit a grounder to Pennington at short in the home half of the fourth. It was recorded as an infield single, but really it could and perhaps should have been an inning-ending double play ball, and Jerry Howarth talked about how things like that won't show up in the box score, but those are the kind of plays that really inflate a pitcher's ERA through no fault of his own. Just as he was finishing his point, Snider ripped it over the wall in right. If I were Jerry Howarth, I'd have been feeling pretty smug right then, but because he is Jerry Howarth, he was filled with nothing but a good-natured love of the game of baseball.

Yunel Escobar aka THE YUNIBOMBER

Internet propers to Drunk Jays Fans

KS

Blue Jays 7, Athletics 6 (10 innings): WALK OFF YEEEEAAAAAHHHH!!!

What is up, Yunel Escobar, what is up.

Sometimes you hang around longer than you'd planned at the gym, and by the time you get back to the car and turn the radio on you find out that it's the tenth inning, and so at first you're like hey that's weird, my wife made a strange off-hand prediction this afternoon that this game would go into extras (why would she think or say that?) and here we are, which is neat, but then you learn that Jason Frasor, who you've always been fond of but who has kind of not been great for a while now, gave up a lead-off home run in the tenth and then got into all kinds of other trouble, and you pretty much abandon hope for the bottom of the tenth, especially since Jose Bautista is missing this series what with the birth of his daughter and all (good for you, Bautistas, all the best).  But then sometimes Rajai Davis singles, and while you're busy thinking about whether or not they should bunt him over or if maybe he should try to steal a bag so the sacrifice would put him on third with only out, Yunel Escobar takes the first pitch he sees over the right field wall to win it with a walk-off home run to the delight of the meagre but, like, incredibly understandable 11,077 assembled at the Dome to watch the A's on a Tuesday.  


Sometimes all of that happens, and it's awesome, both in and of itself just as a thing to have happened in the universe, but also because looking at the box score I see now that Jo-Jo Reyes basically didn't get anybody out, and the bullpen heroically closed the door for like six innings, with Willingham's home run off of Frasor the only damage, and so it's great for that kind of effort by the pen to lead to something positive, you know?


Looks like I missed nine innings of lukewarm garbage and tuned in at pretty much the ideal time. 

KS