"This is my house!": Anatomy of a walk-off
Here's Three Up! Part One, featuring Kirk's magic, Boston's closer, Springer's walk, Bo's single, Zimmer's gallop, Vlad's moment, Gatorade showers, called shots, Boston Media implosions, and more!
We’re doing something different around here today, breaking up my typical Three Up! post into two sections. The ninth inning of Tuesday’s Blue Jays-Red Sox game was too important, too eventful, and demanded too many screenshots to be buried within a much wider-ranging piece. Plus, I did all this first, and what am I gonna do, sit on it while I write a whole bunch about Trent fucking Thornton? Absolutely not.
So let’s talk about it! By which I mean, let’s relive an incredible victory.
Up: Don’t Call it a Comeback
OK, so this heading is a lie I’ve told just to, for some reason, use a line from a song in a 1991 James Woods-Michael J. Fox film as the heading here. You can absolutely call that a comeback! That was a comeback. It really shouldn’t have been a comeback. But it was, indeed a comeback.
The Jays seemed in control of this one from the get-go, pumping Red Sox starter Michael Wacha for three runs in the first, then adding another in the third to go up 4-1. But the Red Sox chipped away all night, adding a run in the fifth, then unsurprisingly getting a pair off of Trent Thornton in the seventh — the seventh! And then Tim Mayza, who just. can. not. stop. throwing. fastballs...
...continued what's been a seriously ineffective run for him — over 10 days from June 19th through Tuesday night he's pitched five times, lasted just 3 2/3 innings, and allowed five runs (four earned) on 11 hits and four walks. (Tim! You’re not Mariano Rivera. Ross! The bullpen needs help, man, have you heard???)
But we’ll get to some of that in Part Two. That’s not what we’re here for in this one. We’re here for magic. And in the ninth inning on Tuesday night these Blue Jays delivered some big time magic indeed — bookended, as it were, by their two most supernatural players.
"And if you notice it got a little noisier in here,” explained Sportsnet's Dan Shulman as the TV broadcast returned from the break for the bottom of the ninth to face Tyler Danish, “Alejandro Kirk has been announced into the game as a pinch hitter for Raimel Tapia.”
Danish had already pitched the eighth of this, but was being asked to give his team a second inning because their dipshit unvaccinated closer, Tanner Houck, was unable to make the trip into Canada — a fact that was not lost on the folks in Boston as the ninth inning unfolded and in its aftermath.
Kirk watched a curveball for a strike to start his at-bat, then — because he’s Alejandro Kirk and this is the summer of 2022 — lashed a sinker off the plate inside like a missile into left field at 99 mph.
Bradley Zimmer promptly took Kirk's spot at first base with the top of the order now due up. George Springer strode to the plate.
“To tell you the truth, once I saw Kirk pinch-hitting and he got the base hit, I knew right then that we were going to win this game,” Vladimir Guerrero Jr. would tell reporters after the game. “The top of the lineup with one, two and three up next? We were going to win this game, for sure.”
Five pitches later — two of which were hilariously non-competitive, and two of which were, if not that, not about to get a hitter as good as Springer to chase — and another Blue Jays runner was aboard.
This put a rather delicious end to Danish’s night.
On came Hansel Robles, pitching on his third day in a row and sporting a 4.70 ERA and a K/9 of just 7.43, to face Bo Bichette with the tying run at second and the winning run on first.
It took all of one pitch for Bo to smack one the other way through the hole between first and second…
…allowing the electrifyingly fast Zimmer to easily gallop home.
So on came Vladdy, who Robles did not appear to want a whole lot to do with. The first two pitches he threw to him were sliders in the opposing batters box.
Falling behind Vlad 2-0 with the winning run on second base? Probably not a good idea, Hansel. If only the Red Sox had some other pitcher they could call upon to close out the game. Perhaps someone who could reliably lock down the final few outs in a pressure-packed situation. They might want to look into one of those, whatever they might be called.
It wasn’t so much at this point that the mood of the crowd seemed tense. The game was already tied. The hard work had already been done. There were no outs. The Jays would get their chances to win still. But they knew this wasn’t any old hitter at the plate, and this wasn’t any old at-bat. They knew they could be in for something special. That something, right then and there, could really happen.
Robles went back to the slider a third time.
He's probably thrown worse pitches in his life, but this wasn’t good. Yet, in a sense, he got away with one. Rarely does Robles miss high with his slider, and the part of the zone where this one landed is Vlad's best for Hard Hit rate per swing, and his second best for barrels per balls in play. That Vlad smashed it "only" 100.1 mph, and into the carpet just 11 feet from the plate was probably not the worst outcome for Robles here on an 0-2 pitch.
And yet. And yet...
And yet the ball managed to just sneak past the reach of Red Sox shortstop Xander Bogaerts and into left field, with George Springer watching it all the way.
Luis Rivera windmilled a big ol’ wave home but Springer was already absolutely going…
The throw from Red Sox left fielder Alex Verdugo was, shall we say,… ah… not great.
AND THE JAYS WIN! THE JAYS WIN!
Vlad clearly knew it all the way. He knew it even before that, even. “I told Charlie before my at-bat, ‘The game is over,’” he told reporters afterwards.
Cue pandemonium.
And cue Vladdy firing up the already extremely fired-up crowd even more so.
“THIS IS MY HOUSE!!!”
And, of course, a Gatorade shower fit for a king.
Plus the obligatory interview…
"I was just looking for a good pitch to hit to somehow get Springer home to win the game," Vlad said about it, via interpreter Hector Lebron, when asked about his final at-bat by Sportsnet's Hazel Mae. "Like I always said, this is my house."
He then punctuated the end of his conversation with Hazel with a boisterous “LET’S GO!”
It was a level of emotion — and intensity — that you don’t always see from the often playful slugger. Knowing how the last couple of weeks have gone for this Blue Jays club, it doesn’t exactly come as a surprise that this pulled-from-the-fire victory would function as a kind of release valve, coming as it did on the heels of a great performance from Kevin Gausman and the offence on Monday, flushing the memories of a rough trip to Milwaukee and Chicago, and disappointments before that against the Orioles and Yankees.
I’m sure it didn’t hurt that it was Boston on the losing end of this one, either. Or that it ensured a series victory here for the Jays at the start of an enormous-for-June homestand. Or that the win vaulted them ahead of the Red Sox in the standings.
Alejandro Kirk may be the breakout star, George Springer may be playoff-tested veteran, and Bo Bichette may be the lithe and long-haired one the kids relate to, but on Tuesday night Vlad reminded them, and all of us, that it’s still very much his world that we’re all living in. This is very much his house.
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Man you are a great writer and the use of screen grabs is neat. Zimmer is crazy fast! Great fielder, speed - if only he could hit a bit more. But I’ll take those first two. You made a subtle comment a few posts ago and a Tweet about the current regimes inability to put together good bullpens. It’s been an issue since Day 1 and doesn’t get the attention it deserves. Perhaps worth a deeper dive story - if you have the time. Just a suggestion.
Last year one of the loudest Skydome moments (Skydome!) was when Alejandro Kirk took a walk. A walk! That tumult was immediately topped by Gurriel's grand slam to cap the comeback, and then Marcus Semien's smash to cap the second comeback. Three of the loudest moments of 2021 came in the same game! I was there. It was phenomenal.
Alejandro is the quiet in the eye of the storm and he deserves greater respect. I do wish his fellow players would stop patting him on the head. Do we pat Vlady on the head, or George, or Gurriel (well...Gurriel). This seems to be an "honour" reserved for short people.