There was a lot of anticipation surrounding Toronto’s first visit since 2005 to the Chicago Cubs for interleague play this weekend. The Blue Jays had just wrung three games out of four from their perennial nemeses the Tampa Bay Rays. They were going to spend a weekend in Chi-Town, one of the best cities on the circuit. There promised to be lots of Jays’ fans in attendance; the series had sold out for individual ticket sales in only thirty minutes, and you could anticipate that it was the Blue Legions of Toronto supporters doing most of the buying.
And, of course, they were going to play the world champion Cubbies on their history-laden home grounds, the fabled Wrigley Field.
Unfortunately, anticipation does not always result in fulfillment. Sure, the Toronto fans were there, in droves. Sure, the weather was spot-on perfect, especially for three straight day games (Friday afternoon games? only at Wrigley!) And sure, the games were close and exciting.
But reality bit: when the first Blue Jays lost their way in the cavernous tunnels between clubhouse and field; when someone jumped up in excitement and clunked his head on the low-slung dugout roof; when Kevin Pillar bravely charged face-first into the ivy in centre field, only to be reminded, not once, but twice, that there really is a brick wall under all that green. And, finally, when the Blue Jays learned to their bitter disappointmen that not only was the ballpark festooned with reminders of the Cubs’ brilliant season in 2016, but that it was also arrayed with clusters and clusters of four-leaf clovers, all working their good-luck magic for the home team.
Having sashayed into Chicago with their hearts light and gay on a Friday morning full of bright possibilities, our heroes slunk out of town on Sunday night with the taste of ashes and bitter defeat in their mouths, and nothing to look forward to except a three-game set with those blankey-blank Rays in their horrendous tin can of a Tampa Bay ball yard cum airplane hangar.
The first game of the series looked like a good matchup, between Jake Arrieta and Jay Happ. Arrieta, though not as dominating this season as in 2016 and earlier, with an ERA running at 3.73, is still the best the Cubs have to offer. The Jays countered with Jay Happ, who has been mostly consistent and reliable since his stint on the disabled list earlier in the year. And, I might add, whose ERA was actually running ten points under that of Arrieta.
And Happ had the best of it in the first inning. Arrieta had started quickly in the top of the first, fouling out Jose Bautista, and flying out Josh Donaldson. But the newly-reliable and steadfast Justin Smoak stroked a double to right, and was brought home when Steve Pearce hit a rare two-out RBI single to right, crossing up the shift and giving Toronto a 1-0 lead before Miguel Montero grounded out to end the inning.
Other than serving them up from the port side, Jay Happ pitched more like Jake Arrieta in the bottom of the first. He struck out the centre fielder Albert Almora on high heat. He struck out All-Star third baseman Kris Bryant with some sharp curve balls. He got first baseman and All-Star Anthony Rizzo to ground out to Ryan Goins behind second in the shift for the third out.
So far, so good.
But after Arrieta quickly disposed of the Jays in order in the second, Happ came back out to face the Cubs; with a sprinkling of fairy dust or something, home team magic happened, and without hardly doing anything impressive, the Cubbies had a 3-1 lead.
Happ walked the leadoff batter, Ben Zobrist, who’s always been right in the thick of it when playing the Blue Jays. Second baseman Ian Happ, a rookie switch-hitting power hitter, and no relation to Jay Happ, was fanned by his namesake, who made him chase a breaking ball.
This brought the catcher, Victor Caratini, another and very newly-arrived rookie and an unknown quantity, to the plate. Caratini quickly made himself known by doubling to right, sending Zobrist to third. Remember this hit. Jason Heyward came up and hit a bouncer to the right side. Zobrist broke from third on contact; Justin Smoak had to range far to his right to flag down the ball. There was no play at the plate, and none at first either, because Happ was slow leaving the mound and never got to first to cover the bag.
Caratini of course moved to third. With runners on the corners, Javi Baez blooped a little popup to short right near the line that only Jose Bautista had a chance on, and he had to pull up, so Caratini scored. Next up was Albert Almora, who hit another bloop, or more accurately a flare, that just sailed over Darwin Barney’s desperately reaching glove. Heyward scored the third run from second, and Baez, running aggressively from first, headed for the plate himself when he saw that Almora had got himself trapped into a rundown between first and second. Ryan Goins was able to abandon the rundown effort and fire to the plate in time to nab Baez for the third out.
So, three runs on four hits: a respectable double, an infield bouncer on which Happ made a mental error, an elusive pop fly down the right-field line, and a little flare over the second baseman. It was the attack of the gnats, but when gnats coordinate their efforts, they can mount quite a campaign. 3-1 for the gnats after two. There had to be a lot of muttering on the Toronto bench after that inning. Bad enough to have to hit against Arrieta: now he was pitching with a fluky lead.
Both teams had chances in the third and fourth innings, but neither was able to break through against the veteran starters. The best chance for either side was in the Toronto fourth when, with two outs and Smoak and Montero on base with singles, Goins hit one deep to centre that was hauled down by the Cub centre-fielder Albert Almora.
Moving ahead to the fifth, Arrieta retired the side in order, but Toronto’s hopes of keeping the score close went out the window when the first three Cubs got base hits in the bottom of the inning to chalk up two more runs, Rizzo’s single to centre scoring Almora, on with a single, and Bryant, who had doubled him to third. It took Jay Happ 29 pitches to finish the inning, taking him to 103, so the Jays would have to go to the bullpen for the sixth, and hope they could make a dint in the armour of Arrieta, who was gathering strength.
The lead held through the sixth and seventh, though a leadoff double by Kevin Pillar, who moved to third when Ryan Goins grounded out to second, and a subsequent walk to Zeke Carrera in the seventh brought Arrieta’s outing to an end, and manager Joe Maddon brought in Carl Edwards to hold Toronto off the board, which he did with the help of another unsuccessful contact play by Toronto. Mutter, mutter . . .
Meanwhile Aaron Loup in the sixth and Tim Mayza in the seventh held off the Cubs, so we entered the eighth with the score still 5-1. It was an eighth inning that raised and then crushed our hopes, all within the space of six outs.
Pedro Strop (pronounced Strope), a hard-throwing veteran right-hander who’s given the Cubs a lot of innings in the last couple of years, came in for the eighth, and just like that his hard pitches were turned into two hard-hit outs, a Donaldson liner to right and a Smoak grounder to second in the shift. Then Steve Pearce found the key: don’t hit it so hard. He dropped a Texas Leaguer into right, followed by a single to centre by Miguel Montero. Still with two outs, mind you, Kevin Pillar doubled home Pearce, Montero stopping at third.
This brought up Mr. Clutch with the runners at second and third and, yes, the two outs. And of course it was a 1-2 count when Ryan Goins singled through the shift to right to knock in both Pillar and Montero, and suddenly it was 5-4 and looking a lot more interesting, even though Goins was stranded at first when Zeke Carrera hit it deep to centre, but it stayed in the park for Almora.
Tim Mayza stayed on to face the Cubs in the bottom of the eighth. The catcher Caratini led off with his third base hit but Jason Heyward erased him with what was initially ruled a double play. But the Cubs asked for a review, and the call at first was overturned. Heyward was on with a fielder’s choice, available to ride home on Baez’ clutch home run to left that for all practical purposes clinched the game for the Cubs.
Leaving aside the question of whether calls on the field should be overturned, it has to affect a pitcher to think he’s thrown a double play ball and then find out that he hasn’t. Not to mention the fact that the lead was 7-4 now, and not 6-4.
There remained one last signature Wrigley moment before the game moved on to the ninth. After the Baez homer, Mayza walked Jon Jay, who was hitting for the pitcher. Manager Gibbons brought Ryan Tepera in to try to finish off the inning. The first batter he faced, Almora, spiked one to dead centre field. Kevin Pillar in his usual fearless style raced back for the wall, reached up, secured the catch, and then smashed face front into the greenery. The ivy gave. The bricks didn’t, and Pillar tried his best not to show how shaken up he was by the collision. Kris Bryant hit an anticlimactic little fly to right to end the inning.
The Cubs’ closer, Toronto’s old friend from his days in the American League with Tampa Bay and Kansas City, Wade Davis, came in to finish things off, and he retired the side in order, but Baez had one more chance to flash his brilliance. With one out and Toronto needing base runners, Jose Bautista pounded a hard grounder between short and third that was a sure base hit, until Baez, on the backhand, flagged it down when it was past him, already into the outfield, and managed to make a strong throw to first for the out.
So the inning of the luck of the Cubbies that produced three runs on just about nothing, was the difference in this first game of Toronto’s Great Wrigley Adventure.
The next afternoon’s matchup was Nick Tepesch and Jose Quintana, and not many people liked our chances in this one, including me.
Quintana, of course, is Chicago’s prized cross-town acquisition from the south side White Sox; he throws from the south side too, and he came to the Cubs with a career record of 180 appearances and 943 strikeouts in just over 1100 innings. Tepesch, on the other hand, had appeared in 47 games and struck out 144 in 238 plus innings. Quintana is expected to make a major contribution to the Cubs’ pennant drive. Tepesh, he was hoping to pitch well enough just to get another start with Toronto.
But you know what? After four innings the score was tied 2-2. Tepesch was gone, mind you, pullled by Manager John Gibbons after three and two thirds, in order to bring Danny Barnes in to finish off a Chicago threat. But when you line up Tepesch’s record for his start with Jose Quintana’s record for the same three and two thirds innings, this is what you get: Tepesch: 2 runs, 5 hits, 3 walks, 3 strikeouts; Quintana: 2 runs, 4 hits, 2 walks, 6 strikeouts. Interesting, no?
The Cubs struck first in the first inning, when Tepesch started with a streak of wildness, walking two and hitting one to load the bases for Anthony Rizzo’s base hit that produced a run before catcher Alex Avila grounded into a double play.
The Jays threatened in the second with runners on second and third with two outs, but ran into the old downer of National League rules with the pitcher hitting. Steve Pearce led off with a double, and then Kris Bryant saved a likely big inning with a great play on a liner by Kevin Pillar. He leapt for the ball, caught it, it popped out of his glove, and he grabbed it with his bare hand for the out. Then on the next batter Bryant turned around and made a bad throw to first allowing Darwin Barney to reach and Pearce to advance to third. Barney stole second while Raffie Lopez struck out.
This brought Rob Refsnyder to the plate, but the inning, and the threat, were already over: Joe Madden ordered Refsnyder walked, so that Quintana could fan Tepesch to end the inning. The Cubs still had the lead.
Ironically, National League ball bit the Cubs in their bear bums in the bottom of the inning. After Jason Heyward reached on still another bloop single to centre Javi Baez struck out, bringing Quintana to the plate. Even with one out, standard NL strategy is to have the pitcher bunt unless he’s a slugger, which Quintana ain’t. But the Chicago pitcher messed up the bunt, popping into a double play started by Tepesch who alertly got it over to first in time to double off Heyward.
After a quiet third inning in which both pitchers stranded a base runner, the Jays took a brief lead in the top of the fourth, as the bottom of the order touched up Quintana for three straight hits. The key to the inning for the Jays was Barney’s ground rule double to left, which moved Kevin Pillar, on with a leadoff single, around to third. Both were driven in by the backup catcher, Raffie Lopez, who moved to second on the throw to the plate, again showing some extra quickness you don’t normally see in a catcher.
Lopez had to hold at second when Refsnyder grounded out to short, and then Quintana fanned Tepesch—the pitcher coming to the plate at a key moment again—and blew away Bautista with high heat to strand Lopez at second.
The Toronto lead lasted only as long as it took for Tepesch to throw his fourth pitch to leadoff hitter Ian Happ in the bottom of the fourth. It disappeared over the fence in left with the homer that Happ deposited there. Tepesch didn’t last the inning, though there was only one more base hit, Alex Avila singling after Happ’s dinger.
Somehow I feel that Tepesch was a bit mistrusted by John Gibbons here. I don’t think any regular rotation member would have been pulled at that point. Here’s the setup: with Avila on first, Heyward hit a ball to Smoak at first, who went to Barney at second for the force on Avila. Barney rushed his throw back to first, conscious of Heyward’s speed, and threw it away, with Heyward advancing to second on the error. With Quintana on deck, Gibbons followed standard National League strategy and walked Baez to bring the pitcher to the plate with one out, keeping in mind that Quintana had already botched one bunt attempt in the second.
This time Quintana succeeded in getting the bunt down, and Tepesch had runners on second and third with two outs and Jon Jay coming to the plate for the third time, after he had walked in the first and been struck out by Tepesch in the third. This was the point when Gibbie hooked Tepesch, bringing in Danny Barnes, replacing one right-handed pitcher with another to face the left-handed Jay, whom Barnes promptly caught looking on a 3-2 fast ball on the inside corner.
One last short comment: with the score tied and Tepesch at 67 pitches, he deserved the right to stay in the game and face Jay, and maybe have a chance to go on and record a win. I’d call Gibbie out as a bit gutless here.
Skip ahead to the bottom of the sixth, after Quintana had retired six in a row and gone to 102 pitches, and Barnes had stayed on to throw a clean fifth for the Jays. Barnes came out for a second full inning in the sixth, and he was burned for the Cubs’ lead run by another typical example of Chicago “offence” if you want to call it that:
Barnes walked the leadoff batter, Happ, leadoff walks being catnip to these Cubbies. Avila grounded out to first, moving Happ to second. Heyward fanned, freeing Happ to take off on the crack of Baez’ bat, so he was able to score on Baez’ deep infield single behind second. With the damage done, Barnes was out, and Matt Dermody came in to retire Ben Zobrist, hitting for Quintana, on a grounder to third. Cubs 3, Jays 2. Underwhelming, but whatever floats your boat.
For all their great stars and impressive stats, it looks to me like the two biggest offensive weapons wielded by the Cubs are staying out of the double play and hitting bloopers and bleeders that fall in at just the right time.
After Felix Pina took over for Quintana and struck out the side in the top of the seventh, Dermody came back out and gave up a one-out base hit to Albert Almora. John Maddon started the runner when Kris Bryant grounded one to Donaldson at third, and Donaldson had to go to first. Anthony Rizzo contributed the bloop, a little looper that evaded Barney’s reach and fell safely in short right while Almora scampered around to score the insurance run.
With Hector Rondon on the mound in the top of the eighth the Jays took advantage of an error by Kris Bryant to close the gap to one, but it was all they would get. With two outs, Steve Pearce hit a little dribbler to Bryant that was obviously going to be a base hit, but Bryant let fly in a vain attempt to throw out Pearce. When the throw went awry Pearce ended up on second. Kevin Pillar cashed him with the two-out base hit through the left side. Toronto’s hopes died with Pillar at first when Kendrys Morales, hitting for Barney, grounded out to first.
Dermody got the first two outs for the Jays in the bottom of the eighth, and then Dominic Leone got the final out as the game headed for the top of the ninth and Toronto’s last chance.
Closer Wade Davis finished things off for the Cubs, but he was fortunate to have the dazzling Javi Baez behind him, for the second day in a row. After Nori Aoki grounded out, Ryan Goins hit one that was clearly going for a base hit, deflecting off Kris Bryant’s glove, but there was Baez behind him, deep in the hole, to field the ball and gun out Goins. Montero’s fly ball to Almonte in centre was almost an afterthought after the Baez play, and the fearsome Cub dinkers had corralled another win at the expense of the Toronto Blue Jays.
On Sunday, the stadium still peppered with Blue Jay blue, Toronto was playing to avoid the embarrassment of a sweep in Chicago in front of all those travelling fans.
It was bad enough that the day would end in a Cubs’ sweep on the weekend, but this one was the must hurtful loss of all.
The pitching matchup was a strong and intriguing one. Toronto had Marco Estrada going to the hill, in his continued quest to recover from his terrible start this season. He was motivated by numerous goals: first was to reestablish his reputation as one of the most effective starters in the American League in recent years. Then of course he wanted to contribute to stopping his team’s bleeding against the Cubs. Last, I think, would be future considerations: he needed to continue his improvement/rehabilitation in order to increase his value on the free agent market for next year, probably for the sake of getting the best possible deal for returning to Toronto. Maybe off the radar at this point would be the thought that he might be of sufficient value to a contending team to wrest a prospect or two for Toronto, without ruining his prospects of returning to the Jays next year. I’d be happy to see him get to pitch in significant games, just so long as the team reels him back in for next year.
On the hill for Chicago was the lanky young right-hander Kyle Hendricks, he of the 16-8, 2.13 ERA last year, who also made five starts in the post-season, splitting 2 decisions but pitching to an ERA of 1.42.
The two starters went pitch for pitch in the first two innings, Estrada retiring six in a row, and Hendricks six out of seven, allowing only Miguel Montero’s one-out double in the second. In the top of the third Hendricks walked Zeke Carrera with two outs but threw three straight called strikes to Estrada to end the inning.
The Cubs pulled some of their damned pixie dust out of their equipment bags in the bottom of the third and manufactured three cheap runs against Estrada, who only gave up one solid hit, but it happened to be a bases-clearing double by Albert Almora that netted them the three-spot.
The catcher Rene Rivera bounced one back toward the pitcher. It deflected off Estrada to Jose Bautista, playing third in this one, but too late to catch Rivera at first. Then Estrada hit Jon Jay with a pitch, admittedly not helpful. This brought up Hendricks in the perfect situation for the pitcher hitting, runners on first and second, just begging to be bunted over, still nobody out. Hendricks laid down a bunt so perfect that he legged it out for a base hit.
With the lineup turned over Almora came to the plate with the bases loaded and nobody out. With Bautista playing even with the bag, Almora scorched a grounder between him and the bag. Bautista dove, but too late. The ball went into the corner where Aoki had to run it down against the wall. Rivera scored. Jay scored. And here came Hendricks, running like a gazelle, not a pitcher, flying around from first to beat the throw at the plate for the third Chicago run.
Two mistakes from Estrada, hitting Jay and leaving one up to Almora, turn into three runs, not one. That’s just Cubs’ baseball, I guess. Estrada went on to throw three easy ground balls, Almora moving up to third on the first one, but not able to score on the second one, and dying at third on the third one.
Not about to roll over and play dead, the Jays got one back right away in the fourth when Justin Smoak, of all people, ran through a Luis Rivera stop sign at third to score on Bautista’s single to left. Smoak had reached second leading off by slicing a double into the left-field corner. Toronto got another one back in the fifth when they cashed an Aoki leadoff double, after the little outfielder contributed some daring base-running to the cause. Batting behind Aoki, Estrada hit a bouncer to short. Aoki broke for third, and Javi Baez tried to throw him out, but Aoki beat the tag. From there he scored when Zeke Carrera hit into a double play. After four and a half innings it was 3-2 Chicago.
In the meantime, Estrada had pitched a clean fourth inning to run his string to six straight retired, and added two more in the bottom of the fifth before a single by Almora and a double by Kyle Schwarber put runners on second and third for Ben Zobrist, who flew out to centre to end the inning.
The sixth inning was the end of the line for both starters, and by the time the inning was over, the score was knotted so that neither would be able to record a win. After retiring Bautista on a fly ball to centre in the top of the inning, Hendricks threw a batting-practice fast ball, below 90 over the outside part of the plate, just to get a strike up on Miguel Montero, who spoiled his plan by getting all of that first pitch cripple, hitting it out to left centre where it was pitched, and the Jays were even with the Cubs at 3-3.
Hendricks breezed the last two batters to finish with a quality start of six innings, giving up 3 runs on 6 hits with two walks and 6 strikeouts on 90 pitches. Estrada then pitched around a leadoff walk to Rizzo, and would be replaced by a pinch-hitter in the seventh, to finish with a comparable line of 6 innings pitched, 3 runs, 5 hits, 1 walk, 4 strikeouts and a hit batter who came around to score, on 96 pitches.
Neither team scored in the seventh. The lefty Brian Duensing started the inning to match with Aoki and Carrera. He retired Aoki on a ground ball, but walked Steve Pearce hitting for Estrada. When Kendrys Morales was announced for Carrera, Joe Maddon went to the right-handed Carl Edwards to keep Morales hitting from the left side. Edwards fanned Morales and flied out Donaldson for the third out. The net result was that Maddon burned two relievers and John Gibbons burned two right-handed pinch-hitters, leaving only Rob Refsnyder left on the bench besides Raffie Lopez, the left-handed-hitting backup catcher.
Dominic Leone was first in for Toronto after Estrada, and he pitched a clean inning, albeit aided and abetted by Kevin Pillar’s second frightening encounter with the bricks of Wrigley. With one out Kris Bryant smacked one to deep centre on Pillar’s backhand side, and despite having already smashed into the bricks on Friday night, Pillar raced right into the wall to make the catch, bouncing off the bricks as he raised his glove with the ball in it like a punch-drunk sailor. I fear for his life sometimes, but at Leone and the rest of the team sure appreciated the effort.
With the eighth inning the dance of the relievers proceeded apace. Pedro Strop retired the Jays in order and struck out two. Aaron Loup started the Cubs’ eighth and retired the lefty Schwarber, gave up a single to the switch-hitting Zobrist and fanned the lefty Rizzo, before giving way to Ryan Tepera, who retired Baez on a grounder to first.
As is the fashion these days, the home team in a tie game went to its closer in the ninth, Wade Davis, who walked two but kept Toronto off the scoreboard. Whether the strategy of using the closer for a hold before winning the game in the bottom of the ninth worked would have to wait for the Cubs to come to bat.
Sorry, Joe Maddon, but no go. The Jays’ setup man, Ryan Tepera, who’d closed out the eighth, stayed on for the ninth. Like Davis he walked two, the first two he faced, but managed to keep Chicago from walking it off, making the key play himself when he turned a sacrifice bunt attempt by Jon Jay into a force out at third for the first out. Then he fanned Bryant and the pinch-hitter Ian Happ in dramatic fashion to send the game to the tenth inning.
In the Jays’ top of the tenth inning it looked like the dusting pixies had changed dugouts and offered their favours to the visitors for once. We might have thought they’d been won over, but they were just messing with us, and never really abandoned their Cubbies. Just a dirty trick, that’s all.
Josh Donaldson led off against Koji Uehara with an infield hit to short. Javi Baez ran the ball down in the hole, but it popped out of his glove, and he couldn’t make a throw. After Justin Smoak flew out to centre, a weird thing happened. A really weird thing. Donaldson advanced to second when newly-inserted catcher Alex Avila, a trade deadline acquisition by the Cubs from Detroit, made a throwing error throwing the ball back to the pitcher.
Now, this wasn’t just a throwing error. Avila spiked the ball into the ground halfway to the mound, on the third-base side. He looked exactly like a first-year T-Baller trying to throw the ball bavk to the infield.
With a base open they walked Jose Bautista, and then Darwin Barney, hitting for Ryan Tepera (with National League rules and double switches all over the place, by this point the lineups were a mess) flew out to short centre. But Kevin Pillar singled to right with two outs to score Donaldson from second and move Bautista to third. Meanwhile, Pillar moved up on the throw to the plate.
The Cubs brought in lefty Justin Wilson to pitch to Ryan Goins and Nori Aoki, but he walked both of them to force in a second run, and Toronto had a two-run lead to hand over to Roberto Osuna who would come in for the save.
Or not. Those damn Pixies flew right back over to the Chicago side!
The memory of the end of this game will ever be entwined with the image of Raffy Lopez, a mostly career minor-league catcher asked to carry the load as the result of the slaughter of the Toronto catching staff, standing forlorn between home and third, staring at Ben Zobrist on third while Javi Baez, a strikeout victim, scampered safely to first.
That image encapsulates everything that went wrong for the Blue Jays in the bottom of the tenth inning of this horrible Sunday afternoon in Chicago. And what went wrong with the Blue Jays determined the outcome. The Cubs only had to sit back and reap the benefits of the craziness visited upon the Toronto team.
Oh, you say, Chicago scored the walkoff on a legitimate base hit with the bases loaded by Alex Avila? Well, let me tell you: Avila never comes to the plate except for all of the craziness that happened before.
There were two major factors that determined what happened: Roberto Osuna had wicked, nasty stuff, nearly unhittable. And Raffy Lopez could not handle it, not that the alternative, Miguel Montero, would necessarily have done any better.
The leadoff hitter, Kyle Schwarber, struck out on a crazy away and in the dirt slider that went to the backstop, allowing Schwarber to reach. (Would have been the first out.) Ben Zobrist singled to right, sending Schwarber to third. (Alternative world: Zobrist on first.) With Anthony Rizzo at the plate, Osuna threw a wild changeup in the dirt, allowing Schwarber, who shouldn’t have been there, to score, while Zobrist advanced to second. (Alternative world: Zobrist on second, still 5-3.) It was now 5-4. Rizzo grounded out to second while Zobrist moved to third, in what should have been the second out (or a double play, if Zobrist hadn’t advanced on the wild pitch). (Alternative world one: Zobrist to third with two outs, still 5-3.) (Alternative world two: game is over on double play.)
With Zobrist on third, Javi Baez fanned (Alternative world: the third out, with the score 5-3) on another crazy wild slider in the dirt. This time Lopez kept the ball in front of him, and blocked it toward third. He raced over, picked it up, looked Zobrist back to third, looked at first, and froze. Osuna was yelling at him to throw it to first, but he froze. Who could blame him? It would have been close at first, Zobrist might have broken for the plate, he might have thrown it away, better to eat it, if he was able to reason at all in that split second.
Baez stole second. Osuna, still wild, hit Jason Heyward to load the bases, and Avila did his thing, singiing home Zobrist and Baez with the tying and winning runs.
Did I say pixie dust? The pixies, plus the fairies, the gremlins, and the leprechauns, must have been throwing bricks, not dust, and the bricks all landed on the poor Blue Jays, forcing them to crawl off the fabled field, swept in the series and, surely, swept from playoff contention.
And what was next on the agenda for our suffering heroes? Only a visit to the frozen-juice can home of their worst nemeses, the Tampa Bay Rays.
Could it get any worse? Please, god, no.
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