GAME 118, AUGUST FOURTEENTH:
JAYS 2, RAYS 1:
SECOND TIME’S THE CHARM:
TEPESCH TAKES TIGHT TUSSLE WITH TAMPA
Baseball is such a funny game. Sometimes the ball flies out of the park, bangs off the walls, rattles around in the corners while the runners circle the bases and the runs tally up. But then you get a game like tonight's. This was a game in which two swings of the bat, one in…
GAME 117, AUGUST THIRTEENTH:
JAYS 7, PIRATES 1:
HAPP, EARLY THUNDER CLINCH
INTERLEAGUE SERIES WITH PIRATES
Just in case anyone here needed a reminder of what a laugher is, today happened. After Jay Happ gave up a run on three straight hits in the top of the first against the Pirates in this afternoon's rubber game of the series with Pittsburgh, Chad Kuhl walked Jose Bautista and Josh Donaldson delivered him…
GAME 116, AUGUST TWELFTH:
JAYS 7, PIRATES 2:
FORWARD, MARCH! WEST POINT GRAD
CHRIS ROWLEY BAFFLES PIRATES FOR WIN
The Toronto Blue Jays have had to use an inordinate number of fill-in starting pitchers this year, thanks to the rash of injuries that has riddled their rotation, a wave that has washed over all but Marcus Stroman. Now, with Francisco Liriano gone to Houston and Aaron Sanchez shelved for most of the rest of…
GAME 115, AUGUST ELEVENTH:
PIRATES 4, JAYS 2:
THE HORRIBLE, TERRIBLE, NO GOOD,
VERY BAD DAY OF ROB REFSNYDER
(With apologies to the beloved childrens' novelist Judith Viorst, whose wonderful title of her best-known book I have ripped off above.) (And with apologies to Rob Refsnyder, who will surely see better days in a Toronto uniform.) A couple of weeks ago, looking ahead to this weekend inter-league series in Toronto between the Blue Jays…
GAME 114, AUGUST TENTH:
JAYS 4, YANKEES 0:
ESTRADA, SMALL BALL TAKE YANK SERIES
While winning two out of three from the wild-card leading Yankees doesn't help the Blue Jays' near lost cause of making the playoffs as much as a sweep would have done, it's not bad to kick back and watch an effective Marco Estrada, a shutdown bullpen, and well-executed small ball combine to keep the playoff…
GAMES 112-113, AUGUST EIGHTH-NINTH:
AFTER SHUTDOWN BY HAPP, DONALDSON,
YANKS BREAK OUT LATE AGAINST ROOKIE
Following the huge disappointment of Sunday's meltdown by Robert Osuna, which cost the Blue Jays a series win in Houston, they came home to a day of regrouping, which may have contributed to their solid 4-2 win behind a strong Jay Happ on Tuesday night. But the holes in their starting rotation, which exacerbate the…
GAME 111, AUGUST SIXTH:
ASTROS 7, JAYS 6:
THREE TIMES A LOSER:
HAS ROBERTO OSUNA BEEN OVER-USED?
It looked awfully good going to the bottom of the ninth today for Toronto to accomplish a surprising series win over the American-League-leading Houston Astros. Didn't we have a three-run lead? Wasn't Roberto Osuna ready to go, after having blown the Astros away in the ninth inning last night, two strikeouts and a fly ball,…
GAMES 109-110, AUGUST FOURTH-FIFTH:
ASTROS 16/3, JAYS 7/4:
FORGET THE NUMBERS,
IT WAS JUST A SPLIT!
Okay, folks, so the aggregate run total for the first two games of the Toronto series in Houston with the world-leading (the Dodgers being not of this world) Astros reads Houston, 19, Toronto 11, which when you look at it that way doesn't even seem so bad on its own. But the key point here…
GAME 108, AUGUST SECOND:
JAYS 5, WHITE SOX 1:
HAPP KO’S SOX FOR SERIES WIN
If there were any doubts remaining about whether Jay Happ has returned to last year's level of excellence, this afternoon's outstanding performance against the Chicago White Sox should have put them to rest once and for all. For a moment it was questionable whether Happ would survive the first inning, let alone go on to…
GAME 107, AUGUST FIRST, 2017:
JAYS 8, WHITE SOX 4:
STRO, DONALDSON, SMOAK COME UP BIG
AS JAYS HOLD ON FOR WIN
After seeing the bullpen blow two of their last three games, it's now clear that all of the typical markers of a Toronto win—a solid performance by their top pitcher and home runs by both of their most consistent sluggers—don't necessarily guarantee chalking it up in the “W” column. But tonight, for once, it did.…