This Week in Blue Jays: Week of September 11th
Twins Walk Off
Justin Smoak's late inning homer to the the game was pretty exciting. I was thrilled. But the reality of 2017 came back to me. Buck Martinez extolled the managerial prowess of Paul Molitor and then Byron Buxton hit a walk off in the 10th.
I had tweeted admiration about this dude's swag when the Twins were in Toronto a few weeks ago. He's a specimen. So I take full responsibility for last night's events. I inspired him.
Jeff Passan published a piece about Buxton yesterday for Yahoo Sports.
Bautista
More than likely, the clock is winding down on José Bautista's time as a Blue Jay. And, of course, the prose is flowing.
The best lately has been Drew Fairservice. The cobwebs were blown off of Ghostrunner on First and Fairservice did Bautista justice.
One from the vault: One of my favourite bits of Jays coverage of the past few years was Fairservice's series called "My Approach" that he did for The Score.
I can't get access to the Bautista one (it times out) but here are some highlights from that and a few others.
(I remember I messaged Drew after I read this the first time. I asked him how Bautista smelled. If I recall correctly, the answer was, "Fine.")
I'm also about done with the "Bautista looks so bad" takes. There are about two weeks left in this season. Stifle.
Fairservice's Birds All Day partner in crime wrote an absolute genius piece on Bautista for Vice Sports.
Stoeten focused on the thing that fans so often forget but is really at the crux of Bautista as a baseball player:
The dude is an underdog who has always been completely unapologetic about who he is, as a baseball player and a person.
And it's glorious.
Stro's Spot of Bother
Stroman, of course, has been a highlight of 2017. He gave up two unearned runs in that final game in the Orioles series earlier this week. Unfortunately, the Jays only mustered a run off Gausman. Stro still has goals:
Darwin Barney's Slides
The Jays hit a walk off of their own versus Baltimore earlier in the week. It was fitting Darwin Barney scored the tying run by sliding into home.
Barney's slide into third the night before is already the stuff of legends.
GIF Queen @atedaryl captured this video of Dan Shulman discussing Barney's hair with Buck Martinez earlier in the season.
Russell is Back
Russell Martin was reinstated from the DL this week. On the disabled because of his oblique muscle.
Rob Longley caught up with Martin, who will be missing the playoffs this year.
“It’s been tough, but every team goes through injuries. It’s not an excuse. The common thing is to go out there and keep playing, put the teem first and never lose sight of that.
It’s energizing to see the young kids. The excitement, you feed off of it. We’ve had some success too and that’s even more important.”
That's cool, Coltrane. You can play them your late 90s hip hop.
This kid digs it.
Brett Anderson: Salty
I want to keep Brett Anderson forever, mostly due to the Twitter salt. Anderson developed a hotspot on his finger and had to be taken out of the game.
He tweeted this (at 4:20 AM, btw)
He also uses my buddy's art as his Twitter profile pic. Long may you tweet, Gingerbeard Man.
Speaking of juiced balls, Jonah Keri wrote an open letter to Robert Manfred about the balls.
I also believe something is up. If I were the MLBPA, I'd be all over this.
Cleveland
Cleveland has won 22 games in a row. Jay Bruce hit another walk off last night to beat the Royals. I'm happy for a certain parrot that is experiencing it, but hot damn. The ennui of it all.
Pork Chop Casserole (with Potatoes)
@playball posted a tweet that had the favourite food of several players, including Josh Donaldson.
So I was like "ooh pork chop casserole." It's basically pork chops, a starch of some sort, cheese and cream soup. And I discovered it can be made with rice or potatoes. I thought about posting a recipe, but needed confirmation about what he preferred:
That is the correct answer.
Starch, fat and salt combined and made warm. That's everything required in food.