GAME 91, JULY SIXTEENTH:
TIGERS 6, JAYS 5:
ELEVENTH-INNING WILDNESS, ERROR,
COST JAYS SERIES WIN OVER TIGERS
Three things we learned from today's eleven-inning loss to the Tigers which gave the Detroiters a series win over Toronto: Marco Estrada's problems are nowhere close to being resolved as his season from hell continues unabated. Toronto can play over a bad performance by a starting pitcher and remain in the game. If you have…
GAME 90, JULY FIFTEENTH:
A TALE OF TWO, NO, THREE, PITCHERS!
Tonight's was a game to consider the pitchers, even though the Detroit Tigers racked up eleven runs and fourteen hits to put the Toronto Blue Jays away early. Whom to feature? Well, we could start by writing about another befuddling, injury-shortened start by Francisco Liriano. Or, we could do a sensitive treatment of the role…
GAME 89, JULY FOURTEENTH:
JAYS 7, TIGERS 2:
STRONG EFFORT BY SANCHEZ,
JAYS BEATS VETERAN VERLANDER
It's quite amazing how quickly the generations turn over in baseball. You had the feeling that Justin Verlander would always be in mid-career, top of his game, racking up the innings and the strikeouts that would lead him, one day, a long way in the future, to the Hall of Fame. It comes as a…
GAME 88, JULY NINTH:
HOUSTON 19, JAYS 1:
TIME FOR A BREAK? FER SURE!
For a game that started out with high drama, this one sure turned into a stinker quickly. One of the vagaries of major league baseball is that it's only the wins and losses that count. In the four games of this series Houston won two games by a combined total of 31 runs for and…
GAME 87, JULY EIGHTH:
JAYS 7, ASTROS 2:
NO-NO BYE-BYE:
MARTIN, DONALDSON BREAK UP FIERS’
SLOPPY NO-HITTER IN FIFTH
What if you were throwing a no-hitter and nobody noticed? In the first few innings of today's third game of the Houston-Toronto series at the TV Dome, Houston starter Mike Fiers was all over the place with his curve ball, which is normally his bread-and-butter pitch. He walked two in the first and two in…
GAME 86, JULY SEVENTH:
ASTROS 12, JAYS 2:
LONG-AWAITED RETURN OF SANCHEZ
AMBUSHED BY UMP, THEN ASTRO BASHERS
Aaron Sanchez made his long-awaited return to the mound tonight after finally conquering the blister problem that has bedevilled the 2016 American League ERA leader for most of this season. However, it didn't go well for Sanchez, as he left the game in the second inning after only five outs and fifty-five pitches, with his…
GAME 85, JULY SIXTH:
JAYS 7, ASTROS 4:
LIRIANO BATTLES, BEATS THE BEST
AS JAYS DISCOVER JOY OF THE BASE HIT
So after a bit of a scramble to take the rubber game in New York against a slumping Yankee team, Toronto returned home to face the Houston Astros tonight, starting a four-game series, the last set before the All-Star break. Let's see, the Astros. 58-27, 31 games over five hundred. With Dallas Keuchel on the…
GAMES 83 AND 84, JULY FOURTH AND FIFTH:
JAYS 4-7, YANKEES 1-6:
HAPP, BULLPEN KEY SERIES WIN IN BRONX
Maybe we missed something important Monday night. The apparent key to Toronto's loss to the Yankees was the four-run New York outburst against Ryan Tepera in the bottom of the eighth inning. But in noting the significance of those add-on runs, we might have downplayed the fact that Toronto came back in the top of…
GAME 82, JULY THIRD:
YANKEES 6, JAYS 3:
STROMAN BLISTER ADDS TO JAYS’ WOES:
BASEBALLS TO BLAME?
After all the problems the Toronto Blue Jays have had with injuries to its starting pitchers, the last thing they needed, or that anyone would have expected, was to have their Last Man Standing, Marcus Stroman, come out of a game with a blister problem on his pitching hand. Buoyed by his role in leading…
GAMES 80 AND 81, JULY FIRST AND SECOND:
RED SOX 7-15, JAYS 1-1:
OH CANADA: CAN IT GET ANY WORSE?
Okay, so I'm combining these two game stories into one narrative, which is not going to be very long, for a number of reasons, all of which an be conflated into a single statement: these were absolutely the worst, most dispiriting, two games played by the Toronto Blue Jays in recent history, which we can…