Kazuma Okamoto Grand Slam Saved Blue Jays Series

The Blue Jays needed the Giants series to stop smelling like burnt toast.

Kazuma Okamoto arrived with a fire extinguisher that also played carnival music.

Toronto took 2 of 3 from San Francisco, which sounds normal if you say it quickly and do not allow Tuesday into the room.

Tuesday was a 10-1 loss.

Wednesday brought a 9-3 win.

Then Wednesday brought a 10-0 win.

That is not momentum.

That is a Roomba finding a staircase, surviving, and then becoming mayor.

The series ended well, but it did not travel in a straight line.

It travelled by trapdoor.

Tuesday was the rake in the driveway

There is no need to dress up a 10-1 loss.

The Blue Jays lost to the Giants 10-1 on Tuesday.

That is the recap and also the apology note.

A 10-1 game makes everybody sound like they are reviewing a refrigerator warranty.

You can say process. You can say flush it. You can say tomorrow is another day.

But the scoreboard already said what it came to say, and it did not use an inside voice.

The useful thing about baseball, if we are being generous and slightly dehydrated, is that it keeps returning with another chance to embarrass your certainty.

The Jays looked flattened Tuesday.

By Wednesday, they had won 9-3.

Then, in the last game of the series, they won 10-0.

This is why being a fan of this team requires a seatbelt, a snack, and a small laminated card that says, do not trust the last thing you felt.

Okamoto pressed the big red button

The final game started with the Blue Jays scoring 5 in the top of the first.

That sentence alone feels like it should be accompanied by a man in a tuxedo sawing the standings in half.

Daulton Varsho got the first run home with a single off Logan Webb to right field. Ernie Clement scored, Nathan Lukes went to third, and George Springer went to second.

One run.

Bases busy.

The baseball equivalent of opening a drawer and finding the batteries you needed.

Then Okamoto hit a grand slam off Webb to right field.

The call was reviewed, and the home run was upheld.

Nathan Lukes scored. George Springer scored. Daulton Varsho scored.

Okamoto finished 2-for-5 with one homer and 4 RBI.

A grand slam in the first inning is not offence; it is a glitter bomb mailed to your own anxiety.

The Jays led 5-0 after the first inning, and suddenly the whole series had a different haircut.

This is what the first inning is supposed to do when it is feeling generous.

Not ask questions.

Not strand people like a ferry schedule in a thunderstorm.

Just score enough runs that everyone watching can unclench at least one shoulder.

The late innings added dessert with weird cutlery

For a long time after that first inning, the scoring stopped.

The Blue Jays put up zeroes from the second through the seventh.

This was fine, because the Giants were also putting up zeroes, and silence is much funnier when you are already ahead by five.

In the top of the eighth, things got strange in a very baseball way.

Myles Straw grounded into a force out off Spencer Bivens. Daulton Varsho scored. Kazuma Okamoto went to third. Alejandro Kirk was out at second. Straw reached first, and the play also included a missed catch error by Rafael Devers.

That is less a scoring play than a suitcase exploding open on the carousel.

Then Andrés Giménez singled off Bivens, and Okamoto scored. Straw went to second.

The Jays added 2 in the eighth.

In the ninth, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. homered off Ryan Walker on a line drive to center field, scoring Nathan Lukes.

Then George Springer homered off Walker on a fly ball to center field.

Guerrero had homer number 5.

Springer had homer number 9.

The final score was 10-0, and by then the 10-1 loss from Tuesday had been shoved into a broom closet wearing Groucho glasses.

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Cease made the joke hold up

The offence had the confetti cannon, but Dylan Cease gave the game its spine.

Cease went 8.0 innings with 0 earned runs and 11 strikeouts.

That is a clean line.

A very clean line.

The kind of clean line that makes the rest of the roster look around for coasters.

Tyler Rogers followed with 1.0 inning, 0 earned runs, and 0 strikeouts.

Toronto’s pitching totals were 11 strikeouts and 0 earned runs.

San Francisco finished with 0 runs and 1 hit.

The Giants also had 3 errors, which is never ideal unless you are the other team and enjoy free furniture.

Toronto finished with 10 runs, 11 hits, 0 errors, and 7 left on base.

The box score looked like it had been pressure-washed.

Enjoy the win, but keep the receipt

The Blue Jays are 44-49 with a .473 winning percentage.

They are 5-5 in the last ten, on a W2 streak, and division rank 3.

Their season line says 93 games played, 376 runs, 4.04 runs per game, a .244 batting average, a .688 OPS, and 93 home runs.

So yes, the series win matters.

No, it does not turn the season into a musical where everyone gets a hat.

Today is Thursday, and it is an off-day.

That feels correct.

After losing 10-1, winning 9-3, and then winning 10-0, everyone needs time to let the inner ear recover.

The next game is Saturday in San Diego against the Padres. JP Sears is listed for San Diego, and Toronto does not have a probable pitcher listed.

That can wait.

For now, the Jays won the series.

Okamoto hit the grand slam.

Cease put the Giants in airplane mode.

And for one blessed off-day, the joke is not entirely on us.