Pretty Cool: Blue Jays Take Series in Tampa

May 07, 2017 by Joanna Cornish

It's one of baseball's great mysteries how a team manages to win games like the one on May 5th. Francisco Liriano was erratic, not efficient and prone to giving up the base on balls. The Jays beleaguered bullpen had to come in and save the day. The Jays were facing Tampa's ace and one of the best pitchers in baseball in Chris Archer. Archer struck out 11 Blue Jays and still didn't come away with the win. He was up 3-0 on them early, and it all fell apart.

The Jays came from behind, something they haven't done much of in 2017. They benefitted greatly from the fact that Kendrys Morales owns Chris Archer. Coming into the game, Morales had a .591 avg against Archer.

Ask any pitcher, even the top guys, they always have one guy they dread facing.

Morales homered twice and perhaps to illustrate just how terrible a place to play Tropicana Field is for the Blue Jays, Morales is the first Blue Jay to homer twice in the same game in Tampa. Being a division rival means they visited Tampa about a million times in a season (it really feels like they are perpetually there) so to have no Blue Jay, a team known for being a home run threat, to have hit two in one game there is rather astounding.

To MLB.com:

How far? According to Statcast, his homer off Archer's 95 MPH fastball went 409 feet into the right field stands with an exit velocity of 109.5 MPH.

Saturday's game is summed up pretty well by John Gibbons' face.

Whatever feelings of positive steps forward carried over from Friday's victory were chased away. Marco Estrada is one of the few bright spots in this young season and was coming off a great start against the Yankees where he contained the force of nature called Aaron Judge.

Marco Estrada laid an egg. He struck out six and seemed to be handling the Rays, but then it went terribly wrong.

He was good until he wasn't.

The best Estrada thing that came out of the weekend was this great feature by MLB.com's Bill Ladson.

In it Estrada describes how Mark Buehrle influenced him. Mark Buehrle coming in hard with some Baseball Life Advice.

I'm making t-shirts:

Zeke may or may not have hit an inside the park homer. Here is a creepy video describing the situation.

See our channel for more Updates https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvRF3wFdtpuzzcKaOiTYjDQ

After the let down of Saturday (and frankly, of the season), one of the bright spots for the Jays' online community was the idea that Joe Biagini was going to get a start.

Biagini allowed an unearned run, two hits and struck out four over four innings in his first big league start. He did everything he needed to do. To Ben Nicholson-Smith:

Also pretty cool? Darwin Barney's go ahead homer in the 8th.

Here it is in GIFs by @ateDARYL

And this:

Josh Donaldson blows a big bubble in the dugout and shows it off to some of his teammates before having some of it stick to his finger Check out http://MLB.com/video for more! About MLB.com: Former Commissioner Allan H.

Everyone hanging out in the same dugout is very exciting. Troy is seriously not having any of this.

Picking it Up: Jays Win Third Straight

May 02, 2017 by Joanna Cornish

I can't formulate full thoughts but I want to at least partially address a few things. It's time to dump some links.

The Jays beat the Yankees last night (THREE IN A ROW!). One of the ways they did it was because Marco Estrada was amazing.

Israel Fehr of The Athletic broke down how Marco Estrada contained the elephantine rookie Aaron Judge.

Chris Coghlan talked to MLB Central about his jump.

Rodger Brulotte writes about what's wrong with the Blue Jays and whose fault it is. The answer? Lot's of stuff and many people.

John from the Bronx, called into Jays Talk.

Can we actually change the name of Blue Jays Talk to "Unsuspecting Postgame Show" ? @Wilnerness590 https://t.co/d5mlalAVPB
— Joanna (@HumandChuck) May 2, 2017

A post I read on SOSH long ago: "Is it just me, or is this Jackie Robinson Day stuff completely overblown?"

So for that reason and probably a few others, I'm not shocked by the events in last night's game at Fenway.

Uploaded by MassLive on 2017-05-02.

Adam Jones is a smart guy and one of the few black American baseball players willing to talk about race in the game and in the wider American society.

Here is what Dave Zirin said about Jones' words about the riots in Baltimore two years ago.

C.C. Sabbathia spoke to Erik Boland about the incident:

Sabathia said it's talked about among black major leaguers: "we know. There's 62 of us. We all know. When you go to Boston, expect it."
— Erik Boland (@eboland11) May 2, 2017

So maybe when POC say they've experienced racism, we should shut up and listen to them.

Meg Rowley talks about Pitch. A fantastic show whose cancellation was announced last night.

This man is flushing his friend's ashes down toilets in every MLB park.

Slate wonders if team chemistry can ever be measured.

Miracle on Turf: Jays Win Twice in a Row, Win Series versus Rays

May 01, 2017 by Joanna Cornish

April 2017 has been one shitty month when it comes to this team. This is probably the worst month I’ve witnessed in the 11 seasons of writing about Blue Jays baseball. It was some combination of terrible play, injuries and bad luck that made it just seem like an endless test in patience and resilience. How many times can I be punished and still come back for more?

Endless injuries, endless bad luck. Endless strings of games with good hitting and bad starting pitching, games with great starting pitching and no hitting, games with enough hitting, great starting pitching and a tire fire in the bullpen. Endless.

Marcus Stroman getting 10 strikeouts on Friday night and ending up with neither a pitcher win or a team win is about as April 2017 as I will ever want anything to be.

The win on Saturday was a bounceback for the bullpen, which blew Stroman’s brilliant start on Friday night.

Liriano held it together through five and the bullpen took over, which redeemed itself. Roberto Osuna credits Russell Martin with encouraging him to go back to his four seam fastball. Per Sportsnet's Ben Nicholson-Smith:

Offensively, Russell Martin seems reborn, as though he has realized that it was getting late early.

It’s unclear as to whether the return of “stir it up” is a cause or an effect, but Stoeten summed it up pretty well today:

Russell being good is much more enjoyable than Russell not being good.
— Andrew Stoeten (@AndrewStoeten) April 30, 2017

Stir on, Coltrane. Stir on.

Solid starting pitching, timely hits and a shutdown bullpen. The Jays were a good baseball team on Saturday.

I missed the first inning of Sunday’s game and tuned the radio on while driving around doing Sunday stuff. I knew Sanchez was scheduled to start and wondered why Joe Siddall was talking about Ryan Tepera so much. Sanchez split his injured fingernail. Horizontally.

It was a bullpen game vs the other team’s ace that the Blue Jays actually won. It looked very bad when the Rays bunted home a run in the top of the 8th. It had all the makings of one of those sucker punch games the Jays have been specialists at so far this season. This happening while they were wearing those red jerseys I hate with the heat of a thousand suns felt especially cruel.

However, they were not going to go quietly. José Bautista scorched a double (his 1000 hit as a Blue Jay) to the wall, scoring Darwin Barney to tie it up. Two batters later, Russell Martin (him again) hit a two run single, making it 3-1. Osuna shut it down and all was right in the world.

Except Aaron Sanchez’s fingernail, which is still quite terrible.

Aaron Sanchez described his injury to the the press scrum, “There was blood everywhere.”

That pretty much sums it all up:

Let's see what new dizzying highs and devastating lows await us in May.

Missing Blog Post

April 30, 2017 by Joanna Cornish

A blog post about that insane game of Marcus Stroman doubling and Chris Coghlan flying has disappeared because using one's phone at 2 AM isn't a good idea. I have a draft version of it somewhere, and perhaps it'll be fixed soon.

In the meantime, here is my favourite GIF from the game: