GAME 21, APRIL 25, 2017:
JAYS 6, CARDINALS 5:
A SERIES OF FORTUNATE EVENTS!
A note from yer humble scribe: this is a very long piece, but perfectly suited to the dramatic circumstances of the game it describes. If you're the sort of person who starts worrying about the parking fee you'll have to pay after two hours of an excellent production of Macbeth, perhaps you should search out…
GAME NINETEEN, APRIL 24TH, 2017
ANGELS 2, JAYS 1:
IF YOU NOTICE THE UMP
HE’S HAVING A BAD DAY!
Let's be clear right from the start: once again the Blue Jays lost because they didn't hit and wasted base-runners. Once again they failed to take advantage of a good pitching performance, this time by starter Francisco Liriano. So it's not like poor Devon Travis cost them the game all by himself. Way back when,…
GAME FOURTEEN, APRIL 19, 2017
JAYS 3, RED SOX 0:
Shutout? Shout Out!
So here's what I imagine happened before today's game. All the Toronto pitchers got together for a meeting to air out their concerns and to try to find a way forward out of this terrible start. While most of them realized that they couldn't really be faulted as a group for the team's 2-11 record,…
GAME THIRTEEN: APRIL 18, 2017:
RED SOX 8, JAYS 7:
BATS FINALLY SHOW
BUT STROMAN SOX-WHACKED
ON PATRIOTS’ DAY
April eighteenth. Patriots' day. Yeah, I know, the Red Sox played their Monday morning game at home yesterday while the Boston Marathon was being run, but the actual date of Patriot's Day, which memorializes the legendary ride of American spy Paul Revere to warn his fellow insurgents that the British regulars were on the march,…
GAME TWELVE: APRIL 16, 2017
ORIOLES 11, JAYS 4
NO HAPPY DAY!
There was good news of a sort this morning before game time, and some definite bad news. Not wanting to dance around someone else's misfortune, the sort of good news for the Blue Jays, and the not so surprising news, is that Baltimore closer Zach Britton, sporting his 54 consecutive save streak, wouldn't be available…
GAME ELEVEN: APRIL 15, 2017:
(JACKIE ROBINSON DAY)
JAYS 2, ORIOLES 1
JACKIE’S DAY? HOW ABOUT KENDRYS’ DAY?
When you start the season one and nine, any win will do, but this one was especially sweet. It would have been great no matter how it happened. Whether it was a blowout, or a slop-fest, or one of those crazy sluggers' games that end up 15-12, it would have been great. But sweet? None…
GAME TEN, APRIL 14, 2017:
ORIOLES 6, JAYS 4:
GOOD FRIDAY TURNS BAD FOR SANCHIE
152 years ago today, April 14, 1865, was also Good Friday. Abraham Lincoln defied the pieties of the day and attended the theatre in Washington that night. He was rewarded for his indiscretion by being assassinated in his box at the theatre. Today, Good Friday 2017, the Toronto Blue Jays defied what little's left of…
GAMES EIGHT/NINE, APRIL 12/13, 2017:
BREWERS 2, JAYS O/ORIOLES 2, JAYS 1:
WHICH OF THESE GAMES
IS JUST LIKE THE OTHER?
The answer to my title question is pretty obvious, when you look at the scores. But an equally valid question would be, how many other games already played in Toronto's 2017 April schedule are just like these two? The answer? Five of the first seven, making the grand total after these last two, seven of…
GAME SEVEN, APRIL ELEVENTH, 2017:
OPENING DAY:
BREWERS 4, JAYS 3:
NO PLACE LIKE HOME? WELL . . .
GAME SEVEN, APRIL ELEVENTH, 2017: BREWERS 4, JAYS 3: NO PLACE LIKE HOME? WELL . . . Conventional wisdom around town had it that the Blue Jays were lucky that so much attention was directed elsewhere in Toronto's sporting world that their 1-6 start on the road would go un-noticed as they slunk into town…
GAME SIX, APRIL NINTH, 2017:
RAYS 7, JAYS 2:
NO HIT, NO WIN, NO HOW!
The way that Toronto roughed up Tampa's starter Jake Odorizzi in the first inning this afternoon, it looked the the Blue Jays were on a mission to split the Tampa series, and come home looking at least a little more respectable than they did after the two-game sweep in Baltimore. Devon Travis led off with…