Monday Bantering: Jays Bits

I had a weekend away from the site. My wife and I went to Radium BC. I golfed a bit, spent time with friends and enjoyed being able to shower (I’m sure you’ve heard about the water main issue in Calgary). Being able to show is a big thing for a guy who plays tennis and squash a fair bit and whose wife just loves it when I’m sweaty (not that I would cuddle up close to her when I’m all sweaty; I wouldn’t do things like that).

That was an interesting weekend for the Jays:

• A great start from Chris Bassitt that turned into a loss because we couldn’t score. Justin Turner batting second?? Just five hits. Just one extra-base hit. And a home run off Chad Green on the third pitch he throws.
• Kevin Gausman throws a complete game shutout, easily his best start of the year. Good on John Schneider for sending him back out for the ninth and ignoring the pitch count. 109 pitches isn’t a crazy number. And we scored seven runs, including five in the fifth inning. An inning that had a home run and three doubles.
• And an extra-inning win. Four shutout innings from Bowden Francis (I thought he could go longer, but it was likely best to take him out while he was doing great since we had a rested bullpen). Trevor Richards had a rare bad outing, but the rest of the pen did a great job. Yimi Garcia was great in the ninth. Genesis Cabrera got the save. And an IKF bases-loaded double in the tenth got us the win.

Isiah Kiner Falefa had four hits and six RBIs over the weekend. He seems to have the best seasons for a guy hitting .275/.319/.394. A 105 OPS+, and he seemed like the team MVP.

Amazingly, we are just a game under .500 and two games out of a Wild Card spot.

There is a tough stretch ahead. But if we can get to the end of the month within a couple of games of .500 and not too far out of the Wild Card race, I think we can consider it a win.

I always thought that baseball needed body contact. There should be an offensive player on the field who can put a hip check on a fielder at just the right moment.

From Sportsnet:

Kikuchi was apologetic after the game, saying he was embarrassed by the incident and forgot about the lack of a dugout railing. He added that there was no intent behind the collision.

“After, I just wanted to create a little hole and hide in it,” he said.

It was a bad decision. They happen.

Shi David wrote about Alek Manoah’s week.

He’ll undergo the hybrid Tommy John procedure performed by Dr. Keith Meister that replaces the ulnar collateral ligament and anchors the new one with an internal brace suture and will be out well into next year.

“It just sucks because I worked my ass off to get back here, not to prove to anybody else, but to prove to myself, to prove to my teammates I’m still this (expletive) badass pitcher. And five starts into that this should happen, it was kind of a pain in the butt,” Manoah says by his locker on a quiet morning in the Oakland Coliseum’s visitors clubhouse. “It’s a down time where this could either make or break me. I’m not going to let this break me. I’m going to continue to let it make me.

Sports isn’t fair.