GAME 38, MOTHERS DAY, 2017:
JAYS 3, MARINERS 2:
PILLAR OF STRENGTH:
LEADOFF HITTER LEADS JAYS
There's a line from the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta The Gondoliers that comes to mind after today's game. In its silly plot (trust me, G and S operettas all have silly plots) one of the flower-market girls has to put on a blindfold and is spun around by the other girls and dropped off by…
GAME 37, MAY THIRTEENTH
JAYS 7, MARINERS 2
JOSE’S BACK AND THERE’S GONNA BE TROUBLE
(AND A LOTTA PINK OUT THERE!)
Where to start about today's game? I'm torn between: One: Maybe we should start listening to Papa John Gibbons when he drawls, “No, I'm not worried about [Bautista/Tulo/Martin/whoever]. He's a pro. We know what he can do. He'll come around.” And two: It's well past time to recognize how much the “lunch bucket” guys, Pillar, Carrera,…
GAME 36, MAY TWELFTH:
JAYS 4, MARINERS 0:
MARINERS DONE IN BY THE B-B BOYS
Tonight the Blue Jays' pitching staff continued its dominance of the theoretically potent Seattle lineup for the second night in a row, registering a crisp and clean 4-0 shutout. The Mariners, who put four legitimate .300 hitters in the lineup even with Robinson Cano sidelined by a nagging leg complaint, have racked up seventeen consecutive…
GAME 35, MAY ELEVENTH:
JAYS 7, MARINERS 2:
MARINERS SMOAKED AND PEARCED
AS JAYS FINALLY CHASE DE JONG
That Marco Estrada, he's such a funny guy. He's always got to have us over on whether he's got it or not. Look, he's a fly-ball pitcher, though his strikeout totals are climbing with his age, quite an impressive accomplishment. So naturally when he looks in at somebody like a Nelson Cruz, early in the…
GAME 34, MAY TENTH:
JAYS 8, CLEVELAND 7
WENT TO A PITCHING DUEL TONIGHT
AND A SLOPFEST BROKE OUT
You had to feel sorry for Francisco Liriano. Really, really sorry. There he was all alone out there on the mound, three batters into the game, and he must have felt like he'd landed in some alternative universe, some topsy-turvy place where nothing, absolutely nothing, is the way it should be. Where was Liriano's Svengali,…
GAME 33, MAY NINTH:
CLEVELAND 6, JAYS 0:
CARRASCO FIASCO
BUT IT WAS BOLSINGER’S NIGHT
On the face of it, this looks like a candidate for submission to one of those short-short story contests; you know, the ones where they're complete in one page, or one paragraph, or even, god help us, in a tweet: “Carrasco pitching against Bolsinger. Cleveland won 6-zip. Move along folks. Nothing more to see here.”…
GAME 32, MAY EIGHTH:
JAYS 4, INDIANS 2:
STRO, GO-GO, AND SUPER KEV
SPOIL EDWIN’S HOMECOMING
As great a game as Toronto turned in tonight, you have to start with Edwin. I've always thought it was about his face, this love we Blue Jays' fans have for Edwin Encarnacion. It's a wise face, philosophical. It's a sweet face, cherubic. It's a face that lights up the whole stadium when it breaks…
GAME 31, MAY SEVENTH:
JAYS 2, RAYS 1:
BIAGINI AND HIS POSSE SAVE THE DAY
Note from yer humble scribe: I would not blame anyone for assuming that I have stopped chronicling the Jays because they are struggling so badly. Rather than being lost in a miasma of misery, unable to face the grim facts, I have been unable to write because I have developed an obscure skin condition, one…
GAME 29, MAY FIFTH:
JAYS 8, RAYS 4:
A STICK TOO FAR:
MORALES’ BLASTS SPOIL ARCHER GEM
Baseball's a funny game, eh? Wednesday night in New York it looked like the Jays were riding high to take the series from the league-leading Yankees, despite the havoc the Baby Bombers had wreaked on Mat Latos the night before. Not only did they have Marcus Stroman going for them in front of his hometown…
GAMES 21 AND 22: APRIL 27, 2017:
CARDINALS 8-8, JAYS 4-6:
A SERIES OF MOST UNFORTUNATE EVENTS
You'll recall that for yesterday's post I modified the title of the popular Lemony Snicket series of gruesomely sad tweens' novels, A Series of Unfortunate Events, for my title. But this time I have to use it straight up. Unfortunate events indeed. After Tuesday's amazing leap-froggin'-Coghlan, pinch-doublin'-Stroman extra inning thriller, you could have been excused…