Berríos battles, Springer's bruised, but the Jays win one in Fenway behind Ramel Tapia's bat!
On Berríos battling, a big second inning, a scary moment, Springer's forearm, Vlad's selectivity, vaccine mandates, a legitimate ghoul, and more!
The Jays bounced back with a big win in Boston, powered by… uh… Ramel Tapia? Sure, let’s go with that.
They’ll have a chance to win the series at Fenway tomorrow afternoon, and hopefully George Springer’s arm is feeling good enough to be a part of it.
Here’s three up!
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Up: José Berríos
What I’m going to say here is completely anecdotal, but I at the very least feel that I watched a ton of Roy Halladay starts where he would have a bit of a wobbly start, getting the feel for the mound and the crowd and the opponents and the umpires’ zone, and then would settle in and end up pitching an absolute gem. That could just be my faulty memory, and I certainly am not trying to put José Berríos in the same category as an iconic Hall of Famer, but this felt like one of those starts. But I think there are some parallels between the good doctor — who I used to depict as a half-faced Termintor whenever he’d pitch — and La Makina.
Sturdy. Durable. Consistent. Efficient.
It maybe hasn’t quite felt like things have been that way for Berríos this season so far. It definitely was a bit more adventurous tonight. There weren’t any clean innings for him. But that’s sort of how he is — and why he’s probably more an incredible number two than a Halladay-like true ace. There will be hits. There will be baserunners. It won’t always feel like he’s cruising. But he gets the job done.
His first inning was undeniably rough…
…but as the game went on Berríos got better in terms of fastball command and in terms of curveball feel. He battled his way through every inning. And in the end he finished the night with just one run allowed on eight hits (only two over 100 mph off the bat after the first inning) and one walk, with six strikeouts, in six innings of work.
For a guy not having his best night, you can’t ask for a whole lot more!
Up: That second inning!
Coming into Wednesday's game, Raimel Tapia had hit just 19 home runs in 1,452 MLB plate appearances. Many of those, of course, were the product of hitting in the thin air of Denver. In his 446-game career, which before this year had entirely been as a member of the Colorado Rockies, Tapia had hit just 6 home runs in ballparks other than Coors Field. But he added one tonight — his first as a Blue Jay — cashing Matt Chapman, who had singled on an 0-2 Nick Pivetta fastball to lead off the second, and starting what would become a five run inning for the Jays.
Walks to Santiago Espinal and Alejandro Kirk followed. Cavan Biggio blooped a single into centre to load the bases. Then, after a George Springer sac fly, Bo Bichette smacked a two-run single to left field.
The Jays wouldn’t get another run in the frame, and a 5-1 lead at Fenway is hardly insurmountable, but the frame gave the team some real breathing room — needed after Tuesday’s flat performance — and a platform from which they could bring home a win.
Up: Trevor Story being OK
Plenty else went on in this game — and let’s just go ahead and say “plenty else” is a real phrase — but nothing in it put my heart in my throat like the moment when Berríos lost a fastball and hit Trevor Story as squarely in the head as you could imagine. (Not even when Springer got hit!)
Scary as hell. But Story, fortunately, was able to stay in the game. Helmets work!
Other notes
• I’m not going to wait and see what the team says about George Springer — who left the game in the middle of the sixth after being hit on the arm by a pitch in the top of the frame (he initially was able to stay in) — partly because I’m fairly confident that the reason he left was mostly precautionary (the X-rays have come back negative, thank fuck!) and because it was cold in Boston tonight, but also partly because I want to be done working and having a drink if I’m going to have to hear any bad news about that!
UPDATE:
• There has been a lot said and written about the border/vaccination issue lately, but according to MLB Network’s Jon Heyman, it may not end up actually mattering.
Mandates work!
• That said, one can’t help but wonder if MLB teams are finding ways to skirt Covid rules. The Jays certainly have! In a way, at least. And in the same way that other teams have. The Jays flew out of Buffalo instead of Toronto when they went to Boston this week. The Sun’s Rob Longley explains that this is because “travellers who enter the U.S. via land point of entries do not require proof of a negative COVID-19 test.”
He adds that “they do, however, require to be fully vaccinated, reality for travel each way across the Canada-U.S. border.”
In other words, if Aaron Judge shows up in Toronto next week, he really did get vaccinated. (Or a fake passport. *COUGH*)
• Vladimir Guerrero Jr. was the subject of a great piece on Tuesday from Sportsnet’s Ben Nicholson-Smith, which focussed on the lack of strikes Vlad has faced this year so far, and the work he and hitting coach Guillermo Martinez have done to stop chasing as many pitches as he has. (His O-Swing% coming into Wednesday’s game was 41.3%, among the highest in the league.)
Seems like Vlad was listening. He wasn’t nearly as aggressive with his swings on Wednesday night — to a pretty incredible degree, in fact. In his final two plate appearances (a called strikeout and a walk) he didn’t swing at a single pitch.
For his night he was 0-for-2 with three walks and two strikeouts, which isn’t exactly what you want, but was better than watching him chase bad pitches. (Even if I suspect part of why he was doing that was because umpires’ strike zones lately have been awful!)
• Not official, but it sounds like Danny Jansen is on the mend.
• The reports of Alejandro Kirk’s death have been greatly exaggerated, I think. But, uh, I couldn’t blame him for hearing footsteps.
• More interesting news on the minor league front:
• Lastly, this is a heavy one, and requires a trigger warning because of domestic violence, but it’s important. Amy Kaufman, ex-wife of disgraced sportswriter Jonah Keri, bravely told her story on CBC’s The National on Tuesday night. As a person who smilingly interacted with someone who turned out to be a complete monster, and at times leveraged that guy’s fame and my relationship to it to help my own career, this has all been a real mindfuck. But this can’t be about me or any of the countless other people who that ghoul successfully concealed his real nature to. Amy was the victim of some incredibly heinous shit and needs to be heard on this. She spoke about some awful and uncomfortable things with incredible honesty and poignancy here, as did CBC reporter Anna Maria Tremonti.
In March, Keri was sentenced to 21 months in jail after pleading guilty to charges of assault, death threats and criminal harassment.
Next up: Thursday, 1:35 PM ET: Jays @ Red Sox (Kevin Gausman vs. Tanner Houck), TV: Sportsnet, Radio: Sportsnet 590
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