Blue Jays Bullpen Parade Takes Yankees Series
Toronto used almost everybody with an arm, then let McAdoo and Bateman make the Yankees wear the loss like a novelty hat.
There are normal pitching plans.
There are careful pitching plans.
And then there was Saturday, when the Blue Jays handed the ball around like it was a cursed office birthday card and still beat the Yankees 4-1.
This came one night after a 3-1 win over New York.
That means Toronto has taken the series.
Please give that sentence a moment to put on its fake moustache and sneak past security.
The Blue Jays, currently 61-64 and still very much the Blue Jays, have taken a Yankees series with back-to-back low-scoring wins, a lineup missing Vladimir Guerrero Jr. to the 7-day concussion IL, and a mound procession that felt less like a baseball strategy than airport boarding by zone.
Zone 1: Spencer Miles.
Zone 2: Ricky Tiedemann.
Zone 3: Louis Varland.
Zone 4: Simeon Woods Richardson.
Zone 5: Mason Fluharty, Braydon Fisher, and Tyler Rogers, because apparently the plane was not full yet.
Somehow the Yankees were the ones stuck in the middle seat.
The mound had a revolving door
The funniest part is that the pitching parade was not chaotic in the way Blue Jays chaos usually is.
There were no visible flames in the data.
No scoreboard avalanche.
No ninth-inning raccoon chewing through the wiring.
Spencer Miles threw 1.0 inning with 0 earned runs and 1 strikeout.
Ricky Tiedemann followed for 1.2 innings with 1 earned run and 2 strikeouts.
Louis Varland threw 1.0 inning with 0 earned runs and 3 strikeouts, which is not really an inning so much as a strongly worded memo.
Simeon Woods Richardson gave 2.1 innings with 0 earned runs and 2 strikeouts.
Mason Fluharty threw 1.0 inning with 0 earned runs.
Braydon Fisher threw 1.0 inning with 0 earned runs.
Tyler Rogers threw 1.0 inning with 0 earned runs and 1 strikeout.
The pitching totals: 9 strikeouts, 1 earned run.
The Yankees: 1 run, 4 hits, 0 errors, 3 left on base.
That is not a game so much as New York being asked to solve a series of small, annoying riddles and then running out of pencil.
New York scored first, because drama has a union
The top of the second brought the Yankee run.
George Lombard Jr. singled on a ground ball to left off Tiedemann.
Spencer Jones scored, and Lombard moved to second.
New York led 1-0.
This was the point where the standard Blue Jays script usually starts warming up in the bullpen.
Low-scoring game.
Thin margin.
A lineup that looks like it has recently survived a minor kitchen accident.
Instead, the Jays answered in the bottom of the third.
Alejandro Kirk singled off Cam Schlittler on a ground ball to center, deflected by Jazz Chisholm Jr.
Brett Bateman scored.
Nathan Lukes went to third.
Tie game.
Bateman was selected from Buffalo on August 7, and by Saturday he was scoring against the Yankees in a game Toronto would use to take the series.
This is why baseball front offices should occasionally be forced to explain themselves using sock puppets.
It would not clarify anything.
But it would match the sport.
The offence left crumbs everywhere, then called it dinner
Toronto finished with 4 runs, 10 hits, 0 errors, and 12 left on base.
Twelve left on base is a lot of unused snacks.
It is the baseball equivalent of buying party trays, inviting everyone, and then serving dinner through a mail slot.
But the Jays got enough.
In the bottom of the seventh, Charles McAdoo doubled off Brent Headrick on a sharp fly ball to center.
Ernie Clement scored.
Toronto led 2-1.
In the bottom of the eighth, McAdoo singled off Tim Hill on a sharp line drive to right.
Andrés Giménez scored.
Brandon Valenzuela went to third.
Clement went to second.
Then Lukes grounded out, pitcher Tim Hill to first baseman Luis García Jr., and Valenzuela scored.
Blue Jays 4, Yankees 1.
McAdoo went 2-for-4 with 2 RBI.
Bateman went 2-for-4.
Clement went 2-for-2.
Kirk and Lukes each had an RBI.
This is a very specific stew.
Not elegant.
Not glossy.
But warm enough, and served directly to a Yankees team that could not get past the revolving door on the mound.
The punchline is that it counts
Friday was 3-1.
Saturday was 4-1.
The Blue Jays have won 2 of 2 against the New York Yankees in this set, which is the kind of sentence that makes a long-suffering fan check the calendar, the standings, and possibly the smoke detector.
The standings still say 61-64.
The winning percentage is .488.
They are 4 in the division.
The season numbers still say 489 runs, 3.91 runs per game, a .242 batting average, a .679 OPS, and 116 home runs.
So no, this is not suddenly a parade down University Avenue.
It is a smaller parade.
A bullpen parade.
The kind where everyone takes one inning, the patched lineup finds four runs, and the Yankees leave Rogers Centre with a loss and several unanswered questions.
Sunday brings Dylan Cease against Ryan Weathers.
Fine.
For now, the Jays have taken the series with a pitching conga line and just enough offence to make the whole thing legally baseball.
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