@bajamm:
Read my post above, the cubs are amazing, and you are right. The Mets and Nats both, if in the Central division, would be in the cellar (not to mention that the Mets have gotten clobbered by Central teams, so their current record, a lot of which was based on feasting on a crappy eastern division, isn’t as good as it looks). Joe Madden is amazing, what he has those kids doing is incredible, he should get manager of the year no matter what happens, and like I wrote up above, if the Mets get knocked out and the cubs are going forward, I am rooting for the cubs to win the world series, that would be just amazing.
@musicprnt oops, sorry I did miss your reference to the Cubbies. Have you seen the Sports Illustrated cover this week? (It may be a regional one.) It shows Bryant hitting one of his famous walk off homers for a win and the rest of the team waiting for him at home plate. I hope it doesn’t jinx them.
My thinking is that, if they succeed in making the playoffs, the Mets will play the west first, so I’ll worry about who will probably annihilate us in the NLCS later.
Another Yankees’ loss and a Jays win puts Toronto 2 games ahead of NY. The Jays gave David Price 12 runs for his 30th birthday and he is now 4-0 with a 1.99 era since coming to Toronto. The Jays have won all five games in which he’s pitched. This is the 20th time this season that the Jays have scored more than 10 runs. Encarnacion extended his hitting streak to 21 with a grand slam. Go Jays! Looking forward to going to a game or two this weekend when Detroit comes to town.
Okay, something I’ve never seen at a baseball game before. In the 7th inning, the Jays’ Edwin Encarnacion hit his third homerun of the game, a grandslam to give him 9 RBIs on 3 hits. The sold out stadium stood cheering and hundreds of hats were thrown onto the field, in Canadian hockey tradition for the ‘hat-trick’. It was glorious. Oh, and they beat the Tigers 15–1.
I saw ARod’s 600th home run in person and watch at least 100 games a year on tv, and I have never seen a fan response to anything like the response to Encarnacion’s final home run today. Wow!! I am a Yankee fan, but Toronto seems unstoppable right now.
David Price is as good a person as he is a pitcher. I am happy for him and for the fans in Toronto. Can’t wait to see a replay of the hat throwing on the evening news. Cool!
The mets are showing some holes, I was at the game last night, Harvey looked good (though threw a lot of pitches), but the bullpen was crap, and they lost again today. Boston happened to have a couple of decent pitchers, but the Mets hitting juggernaut disappeared (basically, last night, Boston pitchers almost handed the game to the Mets). There was one funny thing today, Colon came on in relief and he was facing Sandoval, it was like watching two Buddha statues playing baseball! I am enough of a long time Mets fan to go “uh oh”, people expected the Mets to cream the Sox, and there are some wondering if this is the start of the September collapse. The only good news is the Mets are playing a lot of crappy teams, like philadelphia and Miami, and also Washington looks awful, they are barely a .500 team and have lost Span and some other players, so it looks like the Mets will be okay. I wonder what the playoffs will look like, if the Mets have to play a Central team that may be a problem, they are aweful against them.
Maybe the spirit of Bill Veeck will get the Cubs their first series, though he never owned the cubs, as a young man his had was president of the Cubs (His dad was a sportswriter, and often criticized what the Cubs did and said he could do better, and Phil Wrigley told him “prove it”). Veeck was responsible for planting the Ivy on the wall there, and always had a place in his heart for the Cubs, spent his last couple of weeks before he died going to Cubs games, sitting in the stands. Given Veecks love of theater and such, I think he would appreciate the 2015 Cubs.
Here’s some video from Toronto today. The first one shows the home run. The second one shows the crowd and the hats. At the bottom is a picture of Encarnacion with a bag full of hats. What fun!
As scalding hot as the Blue Jays have been for the last month, and as cold as the Yankees’ bats have been for the last 20 games or so until yesterday, I take some comfort in knowing that the Blue Jays are still only one game ahead of the Yankees in the loss column.
Donna, you’re right. As much fun as it’s been for us Jays’ fans, we know that the 1 1/2 game lead is tenuous. August has been a terrific month for the Jays, and not so much for the Yankees. I think it’s something like 20 and 5 for Toronto and 13 and 13 for NY, I believe that’s what I heard last night. We are enjoying it while it lasts, for as long as it lasts. At the moment, we are getting great pitching, spectacular hitting and terrific defence. We’ll see what September brings with them facing each other 7 times.
The last two Mets -Nats games have exhausted me. In a happy way.
Dear world–please don’t ask me to be productive today.
Enjoy, garland! September is a so-far-so-good time for our Jays. Won 5, lost 2. Still ahead of the Yankees by 1.5 games. A four game series with the Yankees begins on Thursday. My guess is that the Jays will not sweep them the way they did on their last trip to Yankee Stadium. Big news is that Marcus Stroman returns for the first time this season to pitch Saturday’s game. Very exciting.
garland - just being a Met fan is exhausting. DH, the beleaguered Yankee fan, wasn’t happy listening to me complain about how those 2 games started only to have the Mets come back late in the games. He didn’t even take joy in Papelbon blowing it…said since he’s not a Red Sox anymore, it didn’t matter to him.
Sad, sad Nats fan here. Our bullpen totally stinks. Wouldn’t be surprised if Williams and McCatty are gone at the end of the season.
Matt Williams made some questionable decisions with his bullpen against the Mets, but, as a Mets fan, I’m not complaining. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s one of the first managers to get fired at the end of the season.
Bottom of the 8th. Jays leading the Yankees 11-5. Double header tomorrow to make up for last night’s rainout. Anyone know how they handle the ticket-holders for that? I would imagine that these games are all sellouts at this point so what would they do in this instance?
^I imagine that the holders of the rained-out game get rainchecks (hence the name) for some other day. So they are the losers in this scenario.
@garland , yes, I wondered if that’s what they’d do, but if all remaining games are sold out, you’re right, they are the losers. Here’s hoping that they can get today’s games in.
@garland:
What they normally do in a late season rainout is the next day they have a split double header, as opposed to the traditional one where you get to see both games. Basically, it is like a movie theater, you see the movie, leave, and the next audience comes in, these I think are called a ‘day-night doubleheader’ as opposed to a twinight. If this was a game against a nobody team with lite attendence, where the team was playing out the string, they might make it a true double header where people could see both games, but I guarantee in this case it will be 2 seperate games (if they get to play them).