Happy Tuesday.
I’ve read, a few times today, that tonight’s game is a ‘must win’. It is a funny thing, the Jays are one game out of a playoff game and this is a must win. I remember Buck telling us a game was a ‘must win’ in July last year. But, let’s talk about this one. If the Jays lose today and the Guardians win we are two games back. Two games back and if the teams finished tied, the Jays get the spot. If the Jays and Guardians both lose, the Jays are one game back. I get that people have a different
definition of ‘must win’ than I do, but, no it isn’t a must him. If this is a must win then the 16 games after it would have to be must wins too, right?
But I’d really like a win (spoiler: Tom would really like a win every game).
José Soriano starts for the Jays. Jack Perkins (3-10, 6.50 ERA) starts for the A’s. You would think we could score against him.
This is interesting. I don’t know if it means the Jays set up their infield defense to make more plays on hard hit balls or that if they are just bad on infield defense. Or does it mean their pitchers are very good at giving up soft contact? I have thought that Tyler Rogers has had a lot of infield hits against him, but he gets a lot of soft ground balls. It seems that he’ll give up an infield hit and then get two ground outs
The Sun has a story by Rob Longley asking ‘How worried should the Blue Jays be about the drop in velocity of Dylan Cease’s pitches?‘ A good question.
I tend not to worry about fluctuations in velocity of pitches from game to game. Generally, later in the season, a pitcher will have a game or two where they don’t throw quite as hard. When you are throwing at 100% effort all the time, occasionally 100% of what you have today isn’t the same as normal. There was a game in July when Dan (in my view) couldn’t shut up about how Kevin Gausman’s velocity wasn’t up where it usually was, even though he was having a pretty good game.
My guess is that Cease will be closer to his average next start, if not quite there.
I’m having a tennis lesson this afternoon, and I know the pro is going to ask me ‘What would you like to work on?’ even though I know he has a plan for what he wants me to work on. I’ll say ‘I’d like be more consistent, I don’t understand why I’m good on Saturday far less good on Sunday.‘ And he’ll say it is because I’m a person not a machine, and then go on to work on what he thinks I should work on.
The reason he was down a bit was because he’s human. That’s why we watch the games.
Gage Stanifer has been promoted to the Bisons from the Fisher Cats. With two weeks left in the minor league season, normally a team wouldn’t move a guy, because why have him have to move, make him get into a new living situation, for just a few days. But I’m guessing the team is thinking about who might be useful in the last couple of weeks of the Jays season if a pitcher was to go on the IL.
As a baseball fan, I’d love to see Stanifer up with the Jays for a game games.
This is well worth the three minutes to watch:
I’ve been stalling on posting, hoping the lineup would be posted, but no such luck (you know as soon as I hit post, the lineup will be up). Tonight’s game starts at 9:40 Eastern time. I stayed up too late last night writing the recap and then taking a few minutes to relax before going to bed. I’m hoping I can stay up until the end of tonight’s game.
