A Comedy of Errors
Cam Schlittler awaits as the Jays try to punch their ALCS ticket again. PLUS: Stray thoughts on dumb phrases, negative fans, Bad Bieber, micromanaging, Bo running, Buck returning, & a whole lot more!
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If they could catch the ball they’d have won the game. That’s pretty much the extent of any analysis that’s needed of the Jays’ ugly, demoralizing, 9-6 loss in the Bronx on Tuesday night, though I’ll get into a bit more about that below. First, however, I’d like to talk about something that I somehow found even more unbelievably annoying than the outcome.
Take a knee, gang. (And prepare for some salty language.)
“Toronto sports.”
I can hardly express fully my disdain for the mopey, narcissistic, horseshit that is the phrase “Toronto sports” when it is invoked to imply that when something horrible happens to one of our teams—some on-field catastrophe, some snatching of defeat from the jaws of victory, some monumental freeze-up choke job that lets a lesser team beat our better one—well, that’s just the nature of Toronto sports. That’s what happens to us. That’s our collective identity. We always have to deal with this shit. The gods are against us.
No, that’s the Leafs.
Apologies to the good Leafs fans out there, because I know this stuff is far from monolithic. And though at times in my life I’ve had antipathy towards that team and their fan base, I’ve reached a point where I’ll genuinely be happy for everyone should the team ever get that monkey off their backs and give their fans the championship they deserve. But this phrase? This shit? This is bullshit.
This is Leafs fans—yes, Leafs fans, because even though there is obvious overlap among the city’s fandoms, you have to be a Leafs fan to do this—ignoring that the Raptors rather recently won a championship, as did TFC, as did the Argos, and centering themselves as the arbiters of what is or isn’t authentically “Toronto sports,” and their experience as singularly essential to it.
They may not be doing it intentionally, but that’s what they’re doing. It is chauvinism.
Fuck that. Don’t bring your Leafs hang-ups—real and understandable as they may be for you—into this and try to insist that they’re everybody else’s too. (Oh, and pay no attention to the Kawhi Leonard-shaped man behind the curtain—even if Raptors fans themselves will be quick to tell you they experienced plenty of heartbreak before that).
And fuck another thing! Fuck all of the sad sack, “it’s over,” negativity-as-a-substitute-for-having-a-personality defence-mechanism losers who were so unbelievably baby fucking soft as to instantly turn all that shit on the second things started going awry in Game Three of a best-of-five series in which your team was leading 2-0.
Have some dignity! Develop something better than a fucking goldfish brain so you can remember that, like, two hours earlier you completely understood Yankees fans to be pathetic and ridiculous losers for delusionally concocting absurd cheating allegations to laughably comfort themselves because their team took a shit-kicking in games One and Two. Don’t become the thing that you hate!
Bad game. Awful game. Dogshit awful bad game. Potentially a pivotal game in what could become a disgustingly ugly and emasculating series loss. We can all agree on that. But people will insist that there’s nothing wrong with passionate fans going deeper than the Mariana Trench into doomsaying woe-is-me-ism in the moment. Not in my world. Not in the world I’m living in. Not when it’s stupid as fuck. Not when it’s somebody trying to make everyone else as miserable as they are.
Sports is ultimately about community and shared experience. It’s about sharing in both the ups and the downs, yes. But we all had plenty of down on Tuesday night on our own without needing dickheads crying “it’s over!” across our timelines and in the seats next to us. And it’s pretty rich to me that people would allow themselves to do that knowing full well that, if the shoe was on the other foot and Yankees fans were acting like that, we’d all be howling about what absolute losers they were. Get a grip.
OK, end rant. Now here are today’s stray thoughts…
Quickly…
• If not for the IKF error in the first, the inning is over and the Jays avoid a run being scored. If Bellinger isn’t allowed to get to third during the rundown in the third there’s no sac fly opportunity for Stanton and a run likely doesn’t score. If not for Barger dropping that pop-up (or if Schneider calls him off and takes it himself), even if Grisham does end up walking, it’s much easier to intentionally walk Judge, and that doesn’t happen. And if Santander makes that catch, or a more competent fielder is in that spot, the inning ends and a run doesn’t score.
In other words: Bieber and the bullpen could have been exactly as bad as they were and the Jays still should have won that game. Just awful, awful stuff.
• And, yeah, Bieber was bad. Clearly, if you read my post from Tuesday, I was a bit worried about it, trying to talk myself into everything being fine. But oh man, that was a whole lot worse than even my worst expectation. I mentioned on last night’s Patreon-exclusive Blue Jays Happy Hour playoff instant reaction mini-episode that Bieber just wasn’t missing bats—and that’s true: Sportsnet’s Arden Zwelling points out that Bieber’s five whiffs were the fewest he’s generated in his last 25 starts. Part of that is surely because he usually lasts longer, but still!
What I didn’t mention, but ought to have, was that he had an even bigger problem: not missing barrels. Or, more accurately, that he did a terrible job of inducing soft contact.
Woof.
• It would have been really nice for the Jays to have gotten more from Bieber, and if not for the error in the first maybe that would have technically been possible. But it just felt as though they kept offering him one more test, and his arm kept answering: this is not my night. I had no complaints about taking him out there, and completely agree with Brendon here.
• That all said, the thing is, John Schneider didn’t exactly manage exclusively to win the game. I understand the impulse to have brought in Addison Barger in the second inning when they did, but that was a little too cute, no? On one hand, they had just gone up 6-1 and had seen Carlos Rodón lifted for a right-hander. With just one out and a runner on it was clearly an opportunity to really go for the jugular. But on the other hand, even though it’s early, uh, maybe with a five-run lead it’s time to start protecting that and thinking about defence???
Hell, maybe you even pinch run for Santander with Myles Straw there and try to steal a base or bunt him over. Plus, IKF has reverse splits this year, and Barger is a long way from first-half Barger right now. Imagine IKF staying in the game, Clement staying at third, and Santander long gone before the sixth? This is a bit too much in the way of Monday morning quarterbacking I think, but you see what I’m saying here?
• Going back to fans being passionate in the moment for a second, do I regret any of my gratuitous social media dunking on the Yankees and their fans when the Jays were up big early? Not for a second. Having and encouraging fun when your team is in a great spot, even if it was obviously a bit premature, is worlds apart from that other kind of passion people simply don’t need to vocalize.
• OK, OK, maybe this one hurts in retrospect…
• Alright, looking ahead to Game Four, it is indeed going to be a bullpen game of some kind. Louis Varland will get the ball looking to atone for being absolutely victimized by Aaron Judge last night, and it doesn’t appear there will be any sort of sneaky business like Justin Bruihl coming down with a phantom injury and Chris Bassitt suddenly being added to the roster. But that doesn’t mean things couldn’t still get weird. To wit:
• Throwing Gausman into a bulk role here, should the need arise, isn’t the craziest idea in the world. It would mean that Trey Yesavage would then be taking the ball on Friday on regular rest, with a fully rested bullpen behind him. I might prefer the idea of using Yesavage to try to protect a lead in this one, then having Gausman go on Friday instead. Either way, those are the Jays two best pitchers—especially against a team like the Yankees that hasn’t handled splitters well—so I expect them to be involved to the fullest extent possible if this thing goes the distance. Which, of course, we all hope and pray that it won’t.
• It will be no easy task for the Jays tonight, or on Friday (should it get there), with Cam Schlittler then Max Fried set to take the ball. Schlittler is coming off of that ridiculous eight-inning shutout of the Red Sox in the Wild Card round, in which he struck out 12. It’s been a great rookie season for the big right-hander, as he pitched to a 2.96 ERA over 14 starts. But like Fried, who the Jays obliterated in Game Two, Schlittler is only human. In fact, the worst, shortest outing of his brief big league career? September 5th, in the Bronx, against the Toronto Blue Jays.
• Schlittler had his stuff working well enough in that one. Or, at least, his velo was slightly above average, his pitch movement seemed to be no different than usual. Jays hitters just seemed to get to him, forcing him out of the game after four runs over 1 2/3 innings.
In the first, after striking out the first two batters he faced, Vlad smashed a single, Bo went down 0-2 then battled back to smack a 2-2 RBI double on the eighth pitch of his at-bat, Varsho singled, Kirk worked a nine-pitch walk, then Nathan Lukes singled to score two more, before Clement popped out to end the two-out rally. And in the second, after a Giménez groundout, Springer was HBP, Barger walked, Vlad singled to load the bases, and then Bo hit a sac fly that ended Schlittler’s day. He’s human. Let’s not forget that he’s human.
• Let’s not forget that Aaron Judge is human too, eh folks? I know that’s hard to do sometimes, and it’s hard to take the risk that he isn’t going to do something superhuman—because possibility is there in every at-bat. But let’s try to remember the bases loaded strikeout. Let’s try to remember the easy chopper down to third in the eighth inning last night. Let’s try... um... well, those may have only been his two bad plate appearances so far this series. But still!
• The Yankees aren’t going to make it easy for the Jays in this one, obviously. Their lineup is out, and with RHB Paul Goldschmidt in for the LHB Ben Rice at first, they’re fully alternating between left- and right-handed hitters. My advice to Louis Varland: strikeout Grisham, intentionally walk Judge, then get Bellinger and Stanton out. Eric Lauer can take it from there.
• Another newsier item: BO BICHETTE IS RUNNING!
Keegan Matheson grabbed some video from the press box at Yankee Stadium of the injured Jays shortstop doing some light jogging on the field this afternoon, and Mitch Bannon reported that he was doing so without a knee brace. Both noted that he didn’t look terribly comfortable walking back to the dugout.
• Regardless, that’s a big step in the right direction for Bo, as it’s the first time he’s been seen doing so. Simply from looking at it, I don’t think it portends very well for him getting onto the ALDS roster for Game Five, should that be necessary, as a replacement for someone with a phantom injury (though that would be a fun storyline if he did!). But the ALCS? Let’s maybe get there first, but it looks closer to possible right now that it did yesterday.
• More news, as the Jays’ lineup has been posted, and it will be Anthony Santander in right field tonight, with George Springer at DH, which I’m sure won’t cause hellfire if anything goes awry out there again.
• Lastly, the Sun’s Rob Longley caught up with the legendary Buck Martinez, who tells him that he an Aaron Boone are cool after this week’s mini war of words, and—more importantly—that he feels good and that the end isn’t yet in sight for his storied broadcasting career.
Later on in the piece, Buck is even more emphatic about it:
“My wife and I, sure we have talked about it, but we both feel the same way,” the California native said. “We both feel I’m still pretty good at this and we both know how much I love what I’m doing. So why would I walk away from it? There will be a time for that. But right now I feel really good.”
Incredible news!
• OK, and on that positive note, that’s it! LET’S KEEP IT POSITIVE TOO, EH? ANOTHER SHOT AT BOOKING A PLACE IN THE ALCS!!!! TIME FOR A GOOD, OLD FASHIONED, SCHLIT-KICKING, BOYS!!! LET’S DO THIS!!!!!!
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Nice summary. It was just a weird game all round. Flush it as they say. The atmosphere when things get going in Yankee stadium is something though so I think it was always reasonable to expect going into this series that both teams would win at home and that it would go to a Game 5. I just hope that even if we don't come up with a win in Game 5 that the fans stand up and applaud the team....they deserve it. No-one expected such a fun and exciting season.
When's the "START SPREADING THE NEWS BITCHES (Eat Shit Yankees)" victory post???