Quality Shoving: Sanchez, Bats Come Out to Win at Fenway.
After the loss to David Price coming on the heels of an alarmingly familiar Raptors' playoff loss, Toronto sports Twitter was in no mood for nonsense. No more stories about the Jays not hitting. No more stories about how David Price can make an impact on a team.
Aaron Sanchez has pitched in a way that has made the entire debate over whether he should be a starter, a debate that dominated spring training, seem completely ridiculous. Over seven innings of two hit, one run baseball, Sanchez pitched with serious drive. He shoved.
And really, he's shoved all along. Sanchez should really be 3-0 given the way he's pitched. Bautista, and his first inning homer, agree:
“He’s done great all along and he did great again today. He didn’t let any situations get out of hand, even when he walked a few guys or they found some hits after they broke up the no-hitter, he’s just done a terrific job. Throwing seven innings and two hits, we’ll take it every time.”
Whatever the Jays did Saturday night after those dispiriting first two games in Fenway, they need to keep doing it.
John Gibbons wisely decided to put Pillar back down in the eighth spot, replacing him with Michael Saunders. Gibbons needs to be given some credit for trying to get these guys going and for not being to stubborn to prove a point. And maybe the change helped shake up the offense a little. Or it might've been that this is the third time they've face Steven Wright in as many weeks. But the Jays had 14 hits. They left 11 on base, but lets not dwell.
“It’s nice to go out there with two runs on the board, not really feeling like I have to be too fine.”
Scary moment occurred when Wright accidentally beaned Chris Colabello. Colabello seemed more frightened than anything, but pitches at heads are never a good thing.
Wright was incredibly classy at the end of the inning and talked to Colabello. It has to be up there with the worst feeling. Playing baseball involves a certain amount of denial.
"Yes, I'm going to throw a hard object in the general direction of another person, and yes, it might fly back at me. But I'm going to stand here like it's nothing. "
Or
"Yes, this guy is going to throw a very hard object as hard as he can in my general direction, but yeah, I'll stand here, inches from its trajectory."
When that denial is shattered, the danger peeks out.
Luckily, Colabello's humour remained intact.
Forget the RBI, throwing a party for feeling ok after a pitch hit your head is plenty party worthy.
Wright, for his part, had this to say.
“I just told him I was trying to go in. I would never do that to anybody, especially when you start getting up around the head, that’s real scary. I have a relationship with Colabello, I’ve known him for a while. It didn’t matter who it was, I would never, ever try and do that to anybody. I just told him sorry that it happened. Obviously it was an accident but it still gets scary and it definitely shook me up a little bit. Any time the ball gets around the head, it’s dangerous. He understood I wasn’t trying to do that. I felt like it was something I needed to say to get it off my chest.”
Mission accomplished. Now go win a game that starts at 11 AM and split this bitch.
Bloopers. We got bloopers.