Varsho Hits IL as Kirk Fuels Blue Jays' 8-5 Win

The Blue Jays did not make a roster move on Friday.

They released a small weather system.

Daulton Varsho to the 10-day injured list with left wrist inflammation, retroactive to June 10.

Alejandro Kirk activated from the 60-day injured list.

Tyler Heineman designated for assignment.

Davis Schneider recalled from Buffalo.

Yariel Rodríguez sent outright to Buffalo.

That is not a transaction log. That is a turnstile having an existential event.

And then, because baseball loves putting a banana peel beside a filing cabinet, Kirk returned and immediately became one of the main reasons the Blue Jays beat the Yankees 8-5.

Three at-bats.

Three hits.

Two RBI.

A catcher came back from the 60-day injured list and hit like he was trying to prove the injured list had been holding him in a decorative box.

The transaction log needed a crossing guard

There is no gentle way to receive a day like this.

You see Varsho hit the injured list and your first reaction is to make the noise of a lawn chair collapsing.

Left wrist inflammation is the official reason. The move was retroactive to June 10. The sentence sits there looking professional while the fan brain puts both hands on its knees.

Then Kirk returns.

Good news.

Then Heineman is designated for assignment.

Less good, or at least very businesslike in the way baseball can be businesslike, which is to say a clipboard wearing cleats.

Then Schneider gets recalled.

Then Rodríguez is outrighted.

By the end of the list, you are not reading transactions anymore. You are watching luggage arrive from five different gates.

The Blue Jays have had plenty of recent paperwork. Kirk went on rehab assignment to Dunedin on June 3 and to Buffalo on June 9. Dylan Cease was activated from the 15-day injured list on June 9. Max Scherzer was activated from the 15-day injured list on June 10. Tommy Nance was activated from the 15-day injured list on June 8.

This is not a roster. It is a group chat called Who Is Available Today.

The happy part is that Kirk did not return as a concept.

He returned as production.

Kirk made the simplest possible argument

There are many elegant baseball debates.

Lineup balance. Roster flexibility. Injury timing. Bench construction. How many catchers is too many catchers. How many spreadsheets can fit inside one panic attack.

Kirk answered with a double in the bottom of the first.

Ryan Weathers pitching. Kirk doubles on a line drive to left fielder Cody Bellinger. Ernie Clement scores.

That is not a thesis statement.

That is a sandwich thrown through a window.

Then Kazuma Okamoto homered to left, his 14th, and Kirk scored. Suddenly Kirk’s return had already touched multiple scoring events before the evening could become one of those games where everyone says the bats are close and then stares into soup.

In the fifth, he did it again.

Jake Bird pitching. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. doubled to left, and George Springer scored. Kirk followed with a single to right, and Guerrero scored.

The Blue Jays had many contributors. Springer hit his sixth homer in the second with Andrés Giménez scoring. Okamoto drove in two with his homer. Clement had two hits in five at-bats and added an RBI on an eighth-inning double that scored Springer. Guerrero had a hit and an RBI.

But Kirk was the return story because he turned the day from roster churn into tangible baseball usefulness.

That is a rare conversion rate in Blue Jays emotional accounting.

Usually roster churn becomes a headache, a half sentence from the broadcast, and three fans arguing about option years in a grocery store.

This time it became 3-for-3.

---

Naturally, the score had to wobble

The Blue Jays scored three runs in the first, two in the second, two in the fifth, and one in the eighth.

This sounds comfortable.

It was baseball-comfortable, which is different from normal comfortable.

Normal comfortable is a chair.

Baseball comfortable is a chair with a raccoon under it holding a kazoo.

The Yankees scored three in the fifth and two in the sixth. Paul Goldschmidt had a sacrifice fly off Trey Yesavage. Cody Bellinger homered off Yesavage after a review upheld the call. Trent Grisham singled off Mason Fluharty in the sixth, with Spencer Jones and José Caballero scoring, and that call was also upheld after a Blue Jays challenge.

Two upheld reviews in run-scoring moments.

Very relaxing, if your hobby is chewing the inside of your own face.

Toronto’s pitching total was eight strikeouts and five earned runs. Yesavage’s line was 5.0 innings, five earned runs, and three strikeouts. Louis Varland had 1.0 inning, no earned runs, and two strikeouts. Fluharty, Braydon Fisher, and Tyler Rogers each had one strikeout in 1.0 inning.

Fisher and Rogers had no earned runs on their lines, which helped keep the final act from turning into a community theatre production of Oh No, Not Again.

The Yankees left nine on base.

The Blue Jays left seven.

Nobody made an error.

Everybody made us feel things.

A win, not a cure, but a win

The Blue Jays are 34-36, with a .486 winning percentage. They are third in the division, 5-5 over their last ten, and sitting on W1.

W1 is small.

W1 is a single cracker beside a bowl of soup.

But it tastes better when it comes against the Yankees and includes Kirk walking back in from the 60-day injured list with three hits like he forgot to be rusty.

Varsho hitting the injured list is the damp towel over the lamp.

There is no way around that.

But Friday could have been only about another missing player and another reshuffled roster. Instead, it became an 8-5 win with Kirk driving in runs in the first and fifth, Okamoto and Springer going deep, and Clement adding insurance in the eighth.

Today brings the Yankees again in Toronto. Kevin Gausman is listed for the Blue Jays, with Cam Schlittler listed for New York.

The roster carousel will probably keep spinning because apparently that is one of the rides included with admission.

For one night, at least, Kirk got off the ride, picked up a bat, and made the whole ridiculous machine look useful.