2022 Blue Jays Season Thread

[Cali Panthers Fan]

Romano absolutely money in that inning. Didn't give them anything to hit.

Really nice to see the turnaround after that cold stretch.

[flamingred89]

Winning is definitely still more fun than losing. What a great effort by the Jays pen tonight. And finally got the big XBH when it mattered most.

[Ducay]

Back to 1 run ball. Forgot how stressful this is.

[Jiggy_12]

Amazing how much of an impact Springer has on the W-L columns since he’s been a Blue Jay. I’d have to argue he is our MVP

Hilarious how JBJ has already been so much more impactful than Zimmer was all season long.

[Cowboy89]

Originally Posted by ben voyonsdonc

McGuire seems to really move his glove a ton when trying to frame a pitch. It seems to be working with this umpire.

He's well practiced shaking his mitt!

[Party Elephant]

What a night it was at the ballpark last night. A short summary of my experience:

I had taken a red eye flight and got into Boston dead tired around midday. Had time for a little wander around downtown, a quick power nap and a bite to eat before it was time to head to the game.

Getting there was a bit of an experience. The green line subway (unlike the blue line I'd taken earlier from the airport) is more like an underground trolley than a train. The station is very old and crumbling. The trams were all so jam packed that it was near impossible to actually get on one. A family of blue jays fans that I was chit chatting with gave up on waiting and decided to walk, but I stuck it out and eventually crammed myself onto the 7th or 8th tram that came to the station. We were crammed in like sardines as the tram rattled along, all part of the experience. I later ran into that same family of blue jays fans at the ballpark, and they said it only took them half an hour to walk there, which along with the wait was about as long as it took me to get there on the subway. Oh well.

Now, many tomes have been written about Fenway Park by many more eloquent than I, but I will do my best to describe the experience. From the moment I got off the subway there was an energy in the air as the crowd filed toward the ballpark. That's hardly unique to Fenway of course, I've felt that same energy getting off the c train on my way to the saddledome many times. But what is of course unique to Fenway is that it's just right there in the middle of a dense neighbourhood with not a parking lot in sight. I've seen it on TV and in pictures so many times, but I was still blown away to see it in person. All the jam packed bars and shops that surround it, it's an atmosphere like no other.

Once inside I went to find my seat. Coming out of the tunnel I was again blown away by the views at field level. The green monster, Pesky's pole, the outfield triangle, all right there in front of me. My seat was in the grandstand behind home plate, just under the overhang of the upper deck. I had arrived about half an hour before first pitch so I was able to just sit there and soak up the atmosphere before the start of the game, and what an atmosphere it was. As the place filled the sound got louder and louder. The overhang amplifies every sound, so even just the chattering crowd when nothing was happening on the field was quite loud. It would reach almost deafening levels when things were happening for the Red Sox. I was very impressed with the crowd considering the Sox are not very good right now. I can only imagine how intense a playoff game at Fenway would be.

So many little things stick out in my mind. The hustling vendors who can accurately throw a bag of peanuts across 5 rows of seats. The pipes on the 11 year old kid who sang the national anthem. The old man in front of me meticulously keeping score with paper and pencil, and how he visibly hung his head when Romano struck out the last batter. The woman near me who yelled out a desperate "NO!!" when the blue jays turned a 9th inning double play. The Australian man sitting next to me who asked me "What happens now?" at the start of extra innings. The many high fives from strangers in Blue Jays gear, particularly the young fan who jumped up for a high five at the end of the game.

On the actual game:

-It looked like we were getting bad Berrios at the start, but thankfully he settled in and pitched well. 2 ER from 6 innings is a good outing that you take any day of the week.

-I had never heard of Bello, the Red Sox starter before, but the Bkue Jays were making him look like Roger Clemens for the first 3 or so innings. I was actually shocked when I looked at the scoreboard in the 3rd inning and saw his ERA was 7.2, like WHAT?

-The Blue Jays were very lucky the challenge play in the 8th was not overturned. The runner looked safe to me and everyone else in the park. The Sox proceeded to load the bases after that so they very conceivably could have gone ahead there for good.

-Thank God for George Springer. Too many Blue Jays batters were poor at the plate last night, especially Hernandez, don't know why he was swinging at everything. Bichette, Chapman and Merrifield weren't very good either.

-Mayza coming in for his first appearance since injury in a high leverage late game situation wasn't a good call. Bass was beyond clutch to come in and stifle that rally. The crowd was at its loudest when they loaded the bases, and when he got those two strikeouts the air just got sucked out of the place.

-Romano, lights out as always.

All in all ot was an amazing, tense and thrilling game to see live. I couldn't have asked for a better first Fenway experience.

And I get to do it all again tonight!

[Cheese]

Fenway is awesome. Bawstonians eat and drink the Red Sox, makes it a real fun atmosphere!

[ben voyonsdonc]

Gausman is going to have to fight through this one. He doesn’t have his good stuff. Hopefully he can keep them in the game.

[Jason14h]

Old Tapia swinging at balls is back

[ben voyonsdonc]

Great at bat by Vladdy!

[ben voyonsdonc]

McGuire is slapping singles like it’s a Walmart parking lot.

This is where it is valuable to have a trusted long man. You want him to eat innings with minimal damage, if you need to take out Gausman. Kikuchi isn’t that guy.

[Jason14h]

I feel like Jays shouldn’t shift at all anymore with Gausman on the mound

Everyone shops at the split finger and dribbles them through

[ben voyonsdonc]

Tapia with some really ugly at bats tonight.

[ben voyonsdonc]

Originally Posted by Jason14h

I feel like Jays shouldn’t shift at all anymore with Gausman on the mound

Everyone shops at the split finger and dribbles them through

Over the season, they definitely have moved to playing much more straight up with Gausman but that time they sure didn’t.

[ben voyonsdonc]

Jano delivering on a promised homer for the kid with cancer is so great.

[savemedrzaius]

Impressive catch by that Red Sox fan at the monster wall. He is very brave/stupid to catch that without a glove.

[ben voyonsdonc]

Bo is so frustrating - he does so many of the difficult things well but his failures at the easy things are just glaring.

[KelVarnsen]

It’s time to move Bo to 2B

[Jiggy_12]

Of course the moment I tuned in was the moment Bo did that.

I really quite dislike him as a player

[ben voyonsdonc]

Still don’t understand why they didn’t bring in Merrifield for Tapia in the 5th. He’s just terrible right now.