Deal with It: Astros Series Illustrates the 2018 Blue Jays Season

In many ways, that Houston series the Jays just completed is emblematic of the 2018 season- it wasn't terrible. They showed signs of life:

Randal Grichuk having the best damn game, the Jays handling Verlander in the first game (I see you, Curtis Granderson and your two homers)

First, Grichuk hits a mammoth 471 ft homer in the 8th.

Randal Grichuk and Jake Marisnick both come up with great catches and homer for their teams About Major League Baseball: Major League Baseball (MLB) is the most historic professional sports league in the United States and consists of 30 member clubs in the U.S. and Canada, representing the highest level of professional baseball.

Grichuk has the reputation of having a very powerful and when he gets into one, he really gets into one.

Then Grichuk makes this ridiculous catch to steal a homer from George Springer and save the game. Springer is one of the more exciting young players around, but I love his reaction. I love Grichuk's reaction, too. Cool. The Jays got to Justin Verlander, too, and he's been a beast for the Astros.

Ryan Borucki held his own and only gave up 2 runs in the second game.
Only losing by a run in a third game.

But it was very much a one step forward, two steps back sequence of events.

The score stayed 2-0 while Borucki was in the second game game but the bullpen coughed up five runs late so the final was an ugly 7-0.
The Jays had the lead for portions of the third game, but allowed the very good Astros team to tie it and then walk it off. I learned what flanche means.

Ryan Tepera flanche, les @BlueJays perdent la série face aux @astros https://t.co/SI7dAqiKHT pic.twitter.com/s8lDC7ZTUX
— TVA Sports (@TVASports) June 27, 2018

Flanche is the imperative conjugation of the verb flancher, which means to waver. This vocab lesson has been brought to you by Ryan Tepera.

So, again, it's not terrible, it's just not very good. There were signs of life, while the games were close for 26 innings or so, they still lost two of three to the Astros.

The losing is adding up.

So with this series, and that it's late June and the with the news this week that Josh Donaldson had a setback with his rehab and will be re-evaluated in 3 weeks and Aaron Sanchez heading back to the DL. Add in Vlad Jr.'s injury timeline "expanding", which is delaying any promotion, the 2018 season is just kind of there.

Donaldson, at his fourth annual BASEBowl charity event, had this to say:

“It’s not fun. I’d rather be out there. I want to be on the field. Any time you can’t, it kind of takes away from what I can do.

I’ve been doing this ever since I was five years old. For me not to be able to go out there and play the way that I want to, it’s not fun. But it’s also kind of part of life and I have to deal with it.”

Yeah.