Meaningful September: That Was A Lot of Baseball


During the rain out on Thursday night through Friday afternoon, sports radio had a long time to speculate. The consensus seemed to be that a split would be the most likely scenario and a split would leave the Blue Jays exactly where they were at the start of the weekend in the Bronx.

Turns out, the Jays weren't that interested in staying right where they were. This is especially exciting to me because New Yankee Stadium has been a terrible place for the Jays since it opened. The 2014 Jays didn't win a game in the Bronx and it was that record that separated them from the Yankees last year. The Jays have rectified that in 2015 and then some.

 “We came in here feeling good and we won three out of four,” Gibbons said. “You can never complain about that.”

 David Price bought everyone blue bathrobes with their names and numbers on the back. They were modeled on Friday. Here is Ryan Goins, in a photo by John Lott.


David Price was not the sharpest, only going into the 5th inning, but held on long enough for the offense to do what it does best-punish baseballs.

Smoak, Encarnacion, Donaldson and Martin all homered (Russell did it twice.) 

"I feel great, my body definitely feels good, having a good game first game of a series definitely can get me on the right track," Martin said. "Offensively for myself, it has been a rough go for the last couple of weeks. 

"I worked on some things yesterday in the cage, took a bunch of swings and it translated into BP today and translated into the game. Hopefully it's a good sign for me, but offensively it's never really been a problem to score runs, so it's just nice to join the gang."

Bonsoir, elle est partie.

Donaldson's homer was his 38th on the season and wasn't one of those short porch in right shots. It was well back in the left field stands.

Cliff Floyd was on the Fan earlier in the afternoon and suggested that the Jays should basically bum rush the rookie Severino. And that's what they did. (He and I tweeted each other a little about it during the game.)

"Our offence jumped on the young kid early, Donaldson doing his thing, his MVP-self doing his thing," Martin said. "Got the party started and then we just kept adding some runs, had some good ABs in that first inning and we kept tacking on."


MVP-self doing his thing. 

(The Jays wore their alternative blue jerseys all weekend. John Lott reported that they haven't worn their road grays since July 10th. I hadn't realized they'd been gone so long. Players says there was no concerted decision; they just think the blues look better. I'm glad they think so because I think those road grays should be burned in some sort of cleansing ceremony. Bad things happen in those jerseys.) 

Saturday was my birthday. It was also, coincidentally, the longest day of baseball I have ever experienced. It was, in the words of our skip, a long-ass day. So long that the Tulo injury feels like sometime last week. 

Game 1 was started by Marco Estrada and Michael Pineda. Estrada was kind of homer prone and the Jays were down 4-1. 

And they lost Troy Tulowitzki on one of the weirdest collisions I've seen. Pillar is coming in on a fly ball, Tulo is backing out and they collide. Pillar's face in Tulo's back. 

Pillar goes down, Tulo looks at him for a beat and looks like he just falls down to copy Pillar, almost like a little kid playing a game. I suspected it was a "stinger" ie. he had the wind knocked out of him. Tulo gingerly leaves the game, goes for an X-Ray and an MRI. The MRI shows a crack in his scapula. Somehow, Pillar's chin cracks Tulo's shoulder blade. Doctors said that that sort of injury comes from a car accident or being hit with something hard, like a baseball bat. I have trouble imagining Pillar's chin is that hard (iron chin), so I'm thinking Tulo aggravated something from before that he didn't know he had. The optimistic timeline is 2-3 weeks and everyone still loves each other.




The Jays rally and tie it 4-4. Jose Bautista unties it with his second homer of the day. It gets retied and it goes to extras. Everybody has used their best relievers and Joe Girardi has pulled ARod for a pinch runner. They fail to score. As storm clouds began to form, various middling Yankee relievers proceed to light a tire fire. 

They issued five walks, three with the bases loaded, which led to a four-run lead for the Blue Jays.

Jean-Paul Sartre said that hell is other people. I'd argue that baseball hell is a bullpen that can't throw strikes.

I started to feel bad for them. Chasen Shreve, responsible for three of the runs, looked particularly shell shocked (and a lot like Barry Pepper.) Yankee fans left disgusted.



Game 2 was started by someone I really didn't expect to see pitch this year. Marcus Stroman was a little amped up for my liking, but he pitched pretty effectively and didn't give up a hit until the fifth inning. He gave up two infield singles (that were maybe rain induced) and a three run homer to Brett Gardner (who was totally annoying all weekend.) Stroman completed five and then the game was postponed, effectively ending his season debut. He was charged with the three runs on four hits, two walks and a two strikeouts.

"It's only going to get better from here," Stroman said. "Really pleased. One bad pitch, I left a pitch up to Gardner, but for the most part kept the ball on the ground pretty well. Most importantly did everything in my power to put this team in a position to win. This offence is incredible."

Ivan Nova gave up six runs in the second inning, and despite Brett Gardner's second three run homer (seriously, dude, go away) the Jays added to their run total and swept the double header. 

Mark Lowe pitched in both games on Saturday. He got three outs in Game 1 and earned the save in Game 2.

"It's got to be the longest day of baseball for any of us," Lowe said. "Between playing the doubleheader, both of them being nine innings, rain delay, extra innings, just a whirlwind of different things going on. We did our best to stay focused and power through it and fortunately we came out of here with two W's."

"Huge day, I'm proud of these guys," Gibbons said. "It was a long day, it wasn't an easy day to play. The first one to extras and they gutted it out. We basically used everybody and we came out on top two games. That's huge."

Sunday's game felt like an afterthought. Dickey had two rough innings (the second and the fourth, which included a Dustin Ackley homer), but also didn't get the zone Tanaka was getting (which was nice and wide). The bigger problem was Dickey also didn't get the offense he was getting in August to buff out any roughness. Tulo was out, Encarnacion sat to rest his finger and Martin sat for Thole. It all felt a little sleepy. 

But leaving the Bronx with a 3.5 game lead and the New York Times talking about the Wild Card  feels pretty damn good. 


But the job isn't done.


Dickey said the grinding series in the Bronx illuminated the team’s character. Then, a caveat: “Nobody’s taking a day off and resting on the laurels of having beaten the Yankees three out of four in Yankee Stadium. We can’t afford to do that. We need to keep the pedal down. They’re coming to our park again, and 3½ games is not a big lead with 19 left.” Dickey was also asked about the “heartbreaking” loss of Tulowitzki. He politely rebuffed the questioner’s hyperbole. “I wouldn’t say heartbreaking. We’re sad, sure, but we’re resolved too … We’re going to miss his leadership for sure, on the field, but he’s going to be with us. It’s going to be OK.” In another part of the clubhouse, Tulowitzki was trying to put on his shirt. He had to ask Matt Hague to pull his sleeve up over his sore left shoulder.
That was a lot of baseball. And there's still more.

The money quote from Troy Tulowitzki went as follows:

"If you look back in history, all teams that won a World Series or made it deep in the playoffs, they all faced adversity," Tulowitzki said Sunday at Yankee Stadium. "Whether guys are missing time or it didn't quite play out the way they thought it would and that's part of the game.

"So hopefully this is something that makes our story that much more special."

I'm not sure I can handle much more special, but I'll definitely give it a shot.