After dashing the playoff hopes of the Baltimore Orioles, what could be more exciting than for the Toronto Blue Jays to fly into the Twin Cities for a four-game set with the Minnesota Twins, currently sitting in the second wild card slot in the American League?
The Twins, henceforth never again to be derided as the “Twinkies”, are a young, exciting, and hungry team, a team that gave Toronto all kinds of fits in their late August series in Toronto, when they took two of three from a Blue Jays’ team that still fancied itself in the race for that same wild card slot.
The Wild Card setup is a tawdry gimmick, designed only to boost year-end attendance in cities that would otherwise be moving on to hockey and basketball thoughts by now. Sure, we were thrilled to make it last year, and even more thrilled to take that incredible heart-stopper from the Orioles.
But for players and fans alike to be pining desperately for a chance to be assured of only one more game in their season, the wild card setup is little more than a cynical ploy.
Yet, with the Jays out of it now it’s surprising to see how the games left to play with contenders and pretenders add more than a little frisson of excitement to the experience.
I only have to mention for example the fact that the two one-run games that opened this series with the Twins were not only the fourth and fifth straight one-run games the Jays have played, but also the sixth and seventh such out of eight, going back to the Detroit series.
The outside observer might have thought that the pitching matchup for game one of the series rather strongly favoured the Twins, with rotational regular Jose Berrios, carrying a fine season reacord of 12-7 and a 3.94 ERA, facing off against the newly-arrived fill-in Brett Anderson, who’s essentially auditioning for a spot on next year’s Toronto team.
But Anderson has had some good outings so far for the Jays, showing off his impressive mix of breaking balls, his brisk demeanour on the mound, and some veteran savvy.
So it was that both starters put up zeroes for the first four innings. Both flirted with trouble, in particular Berrios in the second, when he gave up base hits to Kevin Pillar and Zeke Carrera, and then walked Raffie Lopez with two outs before he struck out Richard Ureňa with a wicked curve ball to end the inning.
Anderson gave up a leadoff single to Byron Buxton in the bottom of the second, and a double to the wall in right centre by Kennys Vargas, but fortunately in between the two Eddie Rosario hit into a double play.
Both pitchers threw a clean third. Amazingly, by the end of the third inning Anderson had only thrown 28 pitches. But after Berrios stranded a two-out walk in the fourth, Anderson ran into a spot of trouble in the Twins’ half of the fourth. With one out he walked Eduardo Escobar. But after fanning the dangerous Buxton, he gave up the world’s shortest infield single fielded by Raffie Lopez (yes, that’s right, an infield single to the catcher) to Rosario. Then Anderson wild-pitched the runners up to second and third before fanning Vargas on another great curve ball.
It was the Jays who broke through first, in the top of the fifth, with a solid double by leadoff batter Raffie Lopez, a successful sacrifice bunt (yay!) by Richard Ureňa that moved him to third, and a bit of luck, as Josh Donaldson lifted a short fly into left centre that fell into no man’s land between three fielders while Lopez scored from third. The Jays’ rally ended there as Justin Smoak was caught looking and Jose Bautista grounded out to short to strand Donaldson at first.
Anderson got one out in the bottom of the fifth, Jason Castro on a grounder to Smoak at first, and then the wheels fell off for him. All of a sudden he totally lost his command and walked the bases loaded. Number nine hitter Ehire Adrianza, playing left field, walked on four pitches. Brian Dozier walked on a 3-1 count. Anderson fought back to 3 and 2 on Joe Mauer before losing him. And Anderson is a guy who tends to keep the ball in play. Something was obviously wrong with him.
He only faced one more batter, Jorge Polanco, who rifled a 1-1 pitch into left to score Adrianza and Dozier, giving Minnesota the lead and suddenly putting Anderson on the hook for the loss, apparently, as we learned later, another victim of the altered game balls/blister problem, despite never having had a problem with blisters in his career.
Danny Barnes came in and threw one pitch. Eduardo Escobar lined it at Ryan Goins at second, who doubled Mauer off first, but it was now 2-1 Twins.
Berrios lasted two outs into the Toronto sixth. He was chased by a line single to right by Goins that was hit too hard to score Kendrys Morales from second. With Lopez due up, first and third and two outs, Twins’ manager Paul Molitor (may his tribe increase!) opted for left-handed Buddy Boshers. John Gibbons countered with Teoscar Hernandez hitting for Lopez, but Boshers was up to the challenge and struck out Hernandez with a curve ball.
From this point we saw a parade of relievers on both sides, all of whom contrived to keep the score tight at 2-1, right up until there were two outs in the Toronto ninth. For the Twins, Boshers was followed by Alan Busenitz, Trevor Hildenberger, Taylor Rogers, and their closer, Matt Belisle. For the Jays after Barnes went another full inning it was Tom Koehler for an inning, Leonel Campos for one batter, Aaron Loup for an inning, and Carlos Ramirez for another scoreless inning to continue his amazing oh-for-2017 ERA streak.
One of the odder things that any team did at the trade deadline was that the Twins divested themselves of their closer, Brandon Kintzler, trading him to the Washington Nationals, who had been desperate to acquire a funcional closer all year. Once the trade was finalized and July rolled into August, the Twins started to work their way back into playoff contention, so they needed to find a new closer, ASAP. They settled on the veteran Matt Belisle, a 37-year-old right-hander who had a grand total of five saves, three in 2012 with Colorado, in a career stretching back to his MLB debut with Cincinnati in 2003. Belisle, incidentally, had come the other way as part of the Nats’ package for Kintzler.
Belisle picked up his first save for the Twins on August sixth, and by the time he came into this one he had seven in the books. After two Toronto batters in the top of the ninth, he was only one out away from number eight. But that proposed out was none other than Justin Smoak. Belisle came away from this encounter with a little note in his pitchers’ log: if you’re going to throw an 0-1 slider inside to Justin Smoak, make sure it’s down, not hanging. Smoak hammered the hanger all to hell and back, and the game was tied, just like that, just like Smoak!
Belisle stayed in to get Bautista to sky out to Buxton in centre but, as they say, the damage was done.
Aaron Loup, who’d bailed out Campos in the eighth after Campos had walked Buxton leading off, started the ninth with his own mistake, hitting the first batter, Max Kepler, before making his exit. It only took Carlos Ramirez 5 pitches to record his tenth straight scoreless inning for Toronto, by popping up Brian Dozier and then getting Joe Mauer to ground into a double play.
Dillon Gee pitched the tenth for the Twins, and though he gave up a hustle double to Kevin Pillar with one out, he kept the Jays off the board, getting ground ball outs from Michael Saunders who hit for Rob Refsnyder, and Darwin Barney.
Luis Santos, who’d been nearly as effective as Ramirez since coming up in September, took over on the mound for Toronto in the bottom of the tenth. But anyone who watched any of the Toronto-Minnesota series in August knew that the Jays’ status in this game rested on very shaky ground as long as the brilliant, Toronto-tormenting, Byron Buxton was lurking in the shallows.
Santos quickly dispatched the first two Twins, taking nine pitches to pop up Jorge Polanco to short, and strike out Eduardo Escobar. Then the lanky and intense Buxton strode to the plate and settled in, all coiled energy, dangerous as a cobra ready to strike. He managed to lay off—sometimes he doesn’t—a low, outside fast ball. Then Santos threw him a curve ball that got down, but stayed in the middle of the plate. Buxton exploded, and you knew it was over as the ball leapt from his bat. So did he, as he watched it jump out of the park on a line, and so did the slump-shouldered Santos, who could console himself with the fact that he wasn’t the first Jays’ pitcher to be victimized by Buxton.
In dramatic but almost inevitable fashion, round one in Minneapolis went to the Twins. Did the Jays have anything left in the tank to try to derail the Minnesota playoff drive?
And after senior citizen and all-around jokester Bartolo Colon befuddled the Blue Jays’ batters in Toronto last month, what do you think their chances were against him on “Big Sexy Night” in Minneapolis?
Turns out, pretty good.
A word of explanation here.
At the end of August, when MLB had its “Players’ Weekend”, all the players put their nicknames on their jerseys instead of their last names. But there was a problem with Colon; it may be hard to imagine, but he wanted to put “Big Sexy” on his shirt as his nickname, and the league, not surprisingly, vetoed it.
But the Twins decided to thumb their noses at MLB and sponsor a “Big Sexy” t-shirt giveaway. The stands were full of people wearing bright red shirts with Colon’s favoured nom de geurre.
Perhaps it was all a bit distracting for Colon. He didn’t really mesmerize Toronto like he had in his last start. It took the Jays a few innings to see some results from their efforts against the wily old Colon, but they clearly had him timed up from the beginning.
There was a deep fly from Ureňa leading off the game, followed by a line shot to centre by Donaldson, a deep fly by Bautista in the second, a sharp line single to centre by Hernandez in the third, followed by a hard grounder to first by Ureňa that was picked by Mauer for the third out.
In the fourth, Donaldson led off with a vicious grounder right back at Colon, who stuck his glove down between his legs and played “Look what I got!” Even Donaldson had to laugh ruefully at Colon’s mixture of skill and luck as he trotted down toward first. Colon walked Smoak, Bautista flied out to centre again, and then Morales spiked one to left that died on the track for Rosario.
So far the Jays had nothing to show but the one single for some good swings they put on Colon. You had to hope their luck would turn.
Meanwhile, after two quick innings by Jay Happ, giving up only a single to, guess who, Buxton , the Twins had chipped away at the Toronto leftie for a run in the third and a run in the fourth.
In the third, Happ walked the Minnesota catcher, Chris Gimenez leading off the inning, and of course he eventually came around to score. Max Kepler singled Gimenez to second, Brian Dozier loaded the bases with an infield hit behind second, a tough chance for shortsop Ureňa, and Joe Mauer brought Giminez home with a sacrifice fly. Happ controlled the damage with a foul popup and a strikeout, but the Twins had the lead.
Byron Buxton created a second run in the fourth with his legs, laying down a bunt single, stealing second, and eventually scoring on Gimenez’ hard single off the wall in right.
Kevin Pillar cut the Minnesota lead in half in the top of the fifth with a leadoff home run to left. Russ Martin followed with a double to right centre, but Colon managed to put out the fire, though Ureňa made the final out with a scorcher to right, but right at Kepler.
Dozier restored the two-run cushion in the bottom of the fifth with his leadoff home run to left, but the Jays continued to rock Colon, though he managed to hold on into the seventh. Donaldson led off the sixth with a smash to the second deck in left to make it 3-2, but rockets by Smoak and Bautista were turned into outs.
Toronto finally finished off Colon and took the lead from the Twins the next inning, turning Happ from a potential bad-luck losing pitcher into a winner. As so often, it started with a leadoff walk, to Kevin Pillar. Martin followed with his second double of the game, a shot that rattled around in left long enough to allow Pillar to score from first to tie the game.
Ironically, the double by Martin, which finished off Colon for the night at six and a third rather lucky innings, was the only hard hit ball in the inning. Paul Molitor brought Ryan Pressly, a rightie, in to face Goins, who bunted Martin to third, but ended up with a base hit too when Pressly couldn’t make the play on him. After Hernandez flew out, and Pressly caught Ureňa looking, Donaldson hit one that deflected off Pressly for an infield hit that scored Martin with the lead run.
John Gibbons pulled Happ after he retired the left-handed-hitting Kepler on a short fly to left to open the bottom of the seventh, and Dominic Leone retired Dozier and Mauer to preserve the lead. Ryan Tepera pitched a clean eighth, and Roberto Osuna a clean ninth for the save. Pillar helped Osuna out by sliding on his butt to snag Robbie Grossman’s sharp liner for the second out.
Tyler Duffey kept Toronto off the boards in the eighth and ninth innings, despite walking two, one intentional, and giving up a two-out double to Donaldson in the ninth, but as it turned out this was one of those relatively rare occasions when the Toronto bullpen needed no insurance to close out the game, a close and satisfying 4-3 Toronto win that evened the series at one game apiece, temporarily stalled Minnesota’s drive for a playoff spot, and extended Toronto’s streak of one-run ball games to five in a row, three of which they had turned into victories.
Game three of the series, played on a still warm early Saturday evening in Minneapolis, marked the tenth start of Marco Estrada since the end of August, and his thirty-first start of the year. Starting on July thirty-first, in seven of his last nine starts he has looked like the Marco Estrada of 2015 and 2016, and not the Marco Estrada of the first half of 2017.
His return to effectiveness had been one of the main factors in Toronto’s grasp on the possibility of making the playoffs. Since that hope has been effectively squelched, his solid appearances have at least given Blue Jays’ fans something to look forward to as the season winds down.
And, on a practical note, his recent work has bolstered his chances of finding a good fit for himself for next year, when he will face the free-agent market. He has certainly been making a case for himself lately that he has much to contribute as a number two or three starter in any rotation in baseball.
Over his years with the Blue Jays, Estrada has suffered from a chronic lack of run support, and has seen many of his best efforts result in no decisions or low-scoring losses. After this string of five one-run decisions for Toronto, all the prospects were for another tight, low-scoring affair.
But it was the hard luck of the playoff-contending Twins to run into Marco Estrada at his best on a night when the Toronto offence, led by Josh Donaldson, gave him a lead to protect that ended up being more than enough for him to nail down the win, leaving Minnesota in desperate need of a Sunday win to gain a draw in the series.
Estrada would be faced by young Adelberto Mejia, a lefty with lots of promise who’d had eighteen starts for Minnesota, with a middling record of 4-5, and an ERA of 4.47. He also had a record of relatively short outings for the Twins, suggesting that Paul Molitor hadn’t been too willing to let Mejia try to go very deep once he got into some trouble.
Donaldson gave Estrada a run to work with in his first at bat, on the first pitch he saw from Mejia, a fast ball high out of the zone that the Toronto slugger reached up and crushed into the left-centre field stands.
Mejia quickly fanned Justin Smoak and retired Jose Bautista on a short fly to right before turning things over to Estrada for the bottom of the first.
Estrada took the ball and ran with it, if I can mix my sports. He retired the first twelve batters he faced, popping up six of them, and adding a fly ball and a line-out to left to his list of dismissals, making for a quintessential Estrada streak. By the end of four innings he had thrown only forty pitches.
He also had a 3-0 lead by the end of four. After the Donaldson homer in the first, Mejia had matched Estrada pitch for pitch through the end of three. The Toronto third sacker was the only Jay to reach base, as Mejia faced only one over the minimum.
But Mejia didn’t get an out in the fourth, and was out of the game after four batters and two runs scored. Donaldson led off with his second hit of the game, a line shot through the left side. Smoak hit a towering drive to left centre that thudded off the screen protecting the bullpen. By the time Buxton had played the carom, Smoak was on second and Donaldson had scored from first. Bautista hit a hard shot through the left side, but Smoak had to stop at third because the ball was hit in front of him and because, well, Smoak. But he scored on an a generously-awarded infield hit by Kendrys Morales, and the Jays were up 3-0.
The Morales hit should have been an error on shortstop Jorge Polanco, who backhanded Morales’ bouncer up the middle, and then tried a blind flip to Brian Dozier, covering second for the force, that pulled him off the bag. All hands were safe, and Smoak was across. Polanco should have gone to first for the more sure out.
Molitor had seen enough of Mejia, and yanked on his short leash. Dillon Gee came in, retired Kevin Pillar on a liner to left, and then ended the inning on his seventh pitch, which Russell Martin hit into a double play.
Gee pitched a second effective inning in the Toronto fifth, allowing only Richard Ureňa to reach on a walk.
Estrada induced four more balls in the air in the Minnesota fifth. Unfortunately, mixed in with the two popups—that made eight out of fifteen outs—and one fly ball was Eddie Rosario’s solo blast to centre, the first hit and first run for the Twins, and the only batter to reach base on the Toronto starter in the first five innings.
Gee and his replacement, Alan Busenitz, struck out the side in the Toronto sixth, Bautista hitting a hustle double to left centre off Gee after Smoak had been called out on strikes, but then staying there while Busenitz came in and fanned Morales and Pillar.
Estrada, eschewing the aerial route, fanned Jason Castro and Robbie Grossman to start the Twins’ sixth, gave up a base hit, the second of the game, to Dozier, but then went back to his trusty fly-ball routine to retire Joe Mauer for the third out, on an easy fly to centre.
The Jays looked like they were in business against Busenitz in the top of the seventh when Russell Martin led off with a blast to dead centre, but Byron Buxton (remember him?) ran it down with a nice over-the-head snag. Busenitz then took care of matters himself, making a nice recovery on a tough comebacker by Barney, and then freezing Ureňa for the third out.
Estrada walked Rosario, his first walk and third baserunner of the game, in the bottom of the seventh, but left him there by popping up the ever-dangerous Buxton and then fanning Max Kepler for the third out. At 90 pitches, Estrada was looking pretty good to try for eight complete, which would be the first time for him this year.
But first Toronto made their starter’s job a lot easier by adding on three runs, and they did it against Trevor Hildenberger, a reliever they hadn’t touched in four previous encounters this year.
Zeke Carrera hit for Hernandez and led off by beating out an infield hit to second. Donaldson then sent his third hit of the day through the left side, with Carrera reaching third on the hit. After Donaldson stole second on the 1-1 pitch to Smoak, they decided to put him on and load the bases for Bautista. A questionable call, here, taking the bat out of Smoak’s hands.
Bautista, with the Twins pulled around to the left in the shift, hit a pitcher’s nightmare, a popup that would’ve been a can of corn for a second baseman in normal position, but Dozier was pulled way around past the bag. It was too far in even for the speedy Buxton, and neither Dozier nor Polanco, the shortstop, had a chance on it. It dropped in, Carrera scored, and when Dozier kicked the ball away from the infield for an error trying to run it down, Donaldson scored, with Smoak stopping at second, keeping Bautista at first.
This brought up Kendrys Morales, still hitting left against the right-handed Hildenberger. As usual, the Twins cleared out the whole left side of the infield for Morales, giving him lots of room to shoot a no-brainer single to centre through the unoccupied territory around the bag, allowing Smoak to trundle around to score the third run of the inning, while Bautista stopped at second.
Molitor pulled Hildenberger for the right-handed Michael Tonkin, who survived a scare getting the first out when Kevin Pillar lined one hard to the track in left. Then he lost Martin to load the bases, which set him up to fan Ryan Goins and Richard Ureňa to get out of the jam.
The Twins had one last gasp against Estrada in the bottom of the eighth when Eduardo Escobar took him out to right field leading off. One thing about Estrada is that he’ll give up his dingers, but if he’s fortunate enough to do it with nobody on, it’s no big deal especially when your team’s given you six runs to work with. After Escobar’s homer, Estrada pitched a clean final inning to finish his eight with two runs, three hits, one walk, four strikeouts, and only 101 pitches.
Anyone who thinks Marco Estrada won’t pick up a decent contract somewhere next year is not paying attention.
All that was left for this game was for Josh Donaldson to have one more at bat, which came in the top of the ninth against left-hander Gabriel Moya. Already three for four with one homer, he came up with one out and nobody on. He took a called strike and then golfed a high drive to straightaway centre. Buxton might have had a chance to leap for it at the wall, but he was a little slow getting back, and could only watch helplessly as it bounced off the top of the wall and over.
Donaldson was four for five with two homers, the Jays led 7-2, and there was nothing left but for Matt Dermody to mop up, which he did effectively after giving up a leadoff double to Joe Mauer.
Dermody, just learning the style of the game, had never before finished off a victory for the Jays. After Byron Buxton flew out to Bautista to end the game, he turned and headed for the dugout, leaving Russell Martin like an abandoned groom standing at the altar with a sheepish grin on his face. Dermody was almost to the dugout when his mates pointed out to him that he needed to go back out there and shake Martin’s hand.
But the Twins weren’t laughing so much, considering that they were staring at losing three out of four to Toronto, exactly what they did not need when they were trying to secure their playoff spot.
On Sunday they would be playing for a much-needed split to maintain their spot in the standings.
As for Toronto, go figure, eh?
Joe Biagini was coming off his best outing of the year: eight brisk, dominating innings against Baltimore, in which he gave up two runs on six hits, and only threw 88 pitches.
A four-run Toronto first, started off by Josh Donaldson’s second first-inning solo blast in a row, followed by Twins’ starter Kyle Gibson walking four in a row for a second run, and a two-run, two-out single by Raffie Lopez, was followed in the second by another solo shot by Donaldson, a puny one that went only two rows into the stands, lol. Biagini, who had breezed the first inning on eight pitches, started the bottom of the second with a five-run lead.
By the end of the inning, the Twins had a 7-5 lead and Biagini was gone, departed after getting only one out, responsible for six of the seven runs, enough to saddle him with the loss.
It started out innocently enough when Eddie Rosario homered to left. More ominously, Rosario was followed by Byron Buxton, who took Biagini out the opposite way to right. Still, it was only 5-2, and there was nobody on base after Max Kepler grounded out to first.
But not for long.
Biagini never got another out. Escobar singled through the right side. In what may have been the pivotal at-bat of his short outing, Jason Castro fell into an 0-2 hole, took a ball, fouled one off, took another ball for 2-2, and then fouled off four in a row. Finally, on the tenth pitch, a waist-high inside fast ball, Castro singled to right. I would contend that if Biagini had retired Castro, he may have gotten out of the inning.
But, he didn’t. Robbie Grossman walked on a 3-2 pitch. Brian Dozier singled to left to score Escobar and keep the bases loaded. John Gibbons was not prepared to go any farther with Biagini, and brought in Tim Mayza for the lefty-lefty matchup against the veteran Joe Mauer.
If the base hit by Castro was the pivotal at bat for Biagini, the play not made on Mauer was the pivoital play of the inning. Mauer hit a hard one-hopper to the left of Goins at second, and the ball took a vicious second hop under Goins’ snatching glove. The ball was either a double play or an error and Goins missed it for the error. Two runs came in to tie the game, with Dozier stopping at third. Polanco grounded into a fielder’s choice at second scoring Dozier for the lead. Rosario singled Polanco to second. John Gibbons pulled Mayza for the hitherto effective Luis Santos, who gave up a double to the always-redoubtable Byron Buxton, scoring Polanco with the Twins’ final run of the inning. Max Kepler lined out to Smoak at first to end the carnage.
The inning was a disaster. The brilliant five-run lead was gone. The Jays were two pitchers into their bullpen. But it was still only a two-run deficit.
Of course the Minnesota starter Gibson settled down and started throwing strikes for outs. Santos matched him pretty well through the third and into the fourth, when Gibbie pulled him with two on and two out to bring in Aaron Loup to face and retire the left-handed Kepler, who grounded out to second.
Gibson retired the side in the top of the fifth, bringing us to the bottom of the fifth, when the roof really fell in on Toronto.
Or, rather, good ol’ Gibbie pulled it all down on his head with a completely inexplicable, and ultimately stubborn, decision to remove Loup and insert right-hander Chris Rowley to start the fifth, after Loup had faced one batter and thrown five pitches.
Before I proceed to dessicate John Gibbons here, for all the Aaron Loup nay-sayers out there, I just want to point out that if you check his game-by-game record he has made a lot more appearances, most of them effective, as a full-inning relief pitcher, rather than just as a lefty matchup specialist.
So here’s what Chris Rowley was facing as a right-hander with limited major league experience: switch-hitter Escobar, lefty Castro, and switch-hitter Grossman; both Escobar and Grossman having way better power numbers from the left side; the right-handed Dozier; the lefty Mauer; the switch-hitter Polanco, who also has better power numbers against righties; and the lefty Rosario. If you go far enough, after navigating the rightie Buxton, god forbid, you’re back around to port-sider Kepler.
So why Rowley instead of leaving Loup in, and taking his chances on the first three of these guys? Even worse, why leave Rowley in to suck it up for the whole inning when this is what they did to him: Escobar single, stolen base, to third on throwing error by catcher Lopez; Castro single scores Escobar; Grossman single pushes Castro to second; Dozier sac bunt attempt turns into an infield hit to load the bases for Mauer who hits a grand slam; Polanco flies out for the first out; Rosario hits a home run; Buxton strikes out; Kepler walks; Escobar finally strikes out to end the inning.
The Jays went into the inning down by two, 7-5, and came out down by eight, 13-5. Thanks, Gibbie. That was real smart.
Oh, not that it matters but in the sixth he put in lefty Matt Dermody to face Castro, Grossman, and Dozier. He retired the side on eleven pitches.
The Jays capitalized on a couple of doubles, by Zeke Carrera and Justin Smoak, to score two runs in the top of the seventh, not that it mattered. Course with a shut-down of the Twins in the fifth those were the erstwhile tying runs . . .
So with a little help from an easily-unsettled and unreliable Joe Biagini, and some atrocious managing by John Gibbons, the Twins breezed to an easy 13-7 win to escape with a draw in a four-game set that otherwise would have set them back on their heels instead of holding their ground in the race for the second wild-card slot.
The Jays are back home to host the Royals, who are also on the outside looking in, but have a little better place in front of the window than Toronto, and then the Yankees, who are steamrolling to the top wild card slot in the league.
It will be Jose Bautista’s last home stand ever (probably) in Toronto, so there’s that.
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