The first thing my wife said to me this morning was, ‘It wasn’t a dream.‘ She knows me.
One of my first thoughts this morning was ‘That was the sort of World Series start we should have had from Roy Halladay”. If, you know, we had a front office that could have surrounded him with a decent team.
I love games where there is no drama. After the two home runs, on the first three pitches, I really felt calm. I thought, we’ve got this one. Two games in a row of calm, which I guess makes up for the 18 innings
of absolute nerves frayed for every moment. I always say I like games where the recap is written before the final pitch. I was in the press box for some Triple-A games when I was much younger, doing little AP recaps. The ‘real’ reporters hated late-game heroics. They wanted to have the game story done as quickly as possible. I recall the reporter from one of the papers sleeping through three or four innings, and then asking me if anything interesting had happened. Of course, at 18, it was all interesting to me. I was just happy to be there. I was watching like I was a scout, thinking about which of these guys had a chance to be good in the majors.
There are many great notes from the game. Ian Hunter pointed out that, by Game Score, Trey Yesavage now has the number two and three best playoff starts in Blue Jays’ history (Dave Stieb pitched eight innings, of three hit ball, with eight strikeouts in the ALCS in 1985.
It was the first time the top two in the order homered in a World Series game. It would be interesting to know how many times someone homered on the first pitch of a World Series game. I’m pretty sure they didn’t record stuff like that in the ‘old days’. Apparently, Derek Jeter did that in 2000.
And, of course:
- No rookie had ever struck out 12 in a World Series game.
- No pitcher had ever struck 12 without a walk in a World Series game.
- No pitcher has ever made 5 playoff starts in their first 8 MLB appearances.
- No rookie has ever had had two 10+ strikeout games in the playoffs.
- Yesavage is just the second pitcher to have 10 strikeouts in the first five innings of a World Series start, Sandy Koufax was the other and he was at the park.
- And he is the first to have his first two MLB 10 strikeout games in the playoffs.
And I’m sure a dozen other firsts.
And Vlad has a dozen or so records or near records:
The best part is that the Vlad Trolls we had in GameThreads for some of the season have disappeared. Maybe they’ve gone off to complain about random Leaf players. I never understand the point of being a troll. I generally figure that their life is terrible, and they want to try to make other people’s lives terrible.
Dan wasn’t ready for the game to start and Davis homered. Great call though. He wasn’t alone. I was just getting comfortable, and we are ahead.
Max Scherzer may not have been the best pitcher on our staff this year, but he’s been more fun than anyone.
Even plate umpire Alan Porter had a very good day:
Just one more win Jays.
