Some really sad news:
Thought there was a chance he could help out the bullpen down the stretch, but so be it.
Trade deadline is approaching, the biggest deals so far have been Texas dealing Nelson Cruz to the Angels for Matt Thaiss, and the Red Sox sending Chris Sale to the Reds for Travis Jankowski, so Sale beat us in his last Boston start. Hunter Renfroe cleared waivers and was released by Minnesota, and just signed a minor league deal with Detroit.
Also this just in: The Jays sent Randal Grichuk to the Red Sox (a pending FA) for a couple of minor leaguers so we won't be facing him this weekend.
Game 1: The Rays beat the Jays by a final score of 6-3...wait, I'm being told that was the number of HRs each team hit. The ball was flying out of Rogers Centre today and the Rays rode 6 HRs to an 11-4 victory. Chris Paddack gave up 3 solo HRs and aside from one single, nothing else as he went 7 4 3 3 0 11 to improve to 10-5. Keibert Ruiz kicked off off the homer frenzy with a 2-run shot in the 2nd, and after Gregory Polanco and Griffin Conine hit back-to-back jacks for the Jays to tie it in the bottom of the inning, the Rays put 3 on the board in the 4th with a Brandon Marsh homer, a run-scoring wild pitch and a Ruiz sac fly. Then in the 4th Nick Schnell hit his 3rd Rays HR, a 2-run shot to make it 7-2. Alec Bohm (#25) and Seth Beer went back-to-back in the 7th, and Wander (#24) added a solo shot for good measure in the 8th plus a bases-loaded walk in the 9th. Speaking of bases-loaded walks, I tried to get Dany Jimenez to finish off the game but with 2 out in the ninth he walked 4 straight batters to force in a run and Scott Barlow had to get the final out. The Rays had 17 hits in total, and everyone in the lineup had at least one, led by Wander and Keibert's 3 apiece. Schnell had a single and a walk to go with his homer, so after the RBI double the game before he seems to be out of his mini-slump and is 300/472/625 in 40 ABs.
Game 2: The Rays won 8-2 today at Rogers Centre...wait, I'm using the same joke again as that was actually the # of HRs each team hit in the Rays' 14-5 win over the Jays. Once again the Rays treated the Toronto staff like batting practice pitchers as Triston Casas, getting a start at 3B for the slumping Rafael Devers, had 2 HR and 5 RBI, Wander had 2 more HR and a double to give him 26 HR and 86 RBI, Meadows hit #27, Bohm #26, Seth Beer #16 and Vidal Brujan had #7, an MLB career high. Getting all this run support was Daniel Lynch, but he looked like he might not make it out of the first when he allowed 4 runs including a 2-run HR to Alejandro Kirk. He settled down after that but wasn't exactly dominating, going 6 7 5 5 3 2 for his second-straight not too great start. He's still 6-2 as a Ray, though, but a couple of more starts like this and Dustin May's looking good at Durham I'm just saying. Casas, meanwhile in 69 nice at-bats this season, is hitting 304/377/609 with 6 HR and 13 RBI. Maybe we should be considering it the Casas-for-Toro trade. And in the Nick Schnell watch, he was one of the few Rays who didn't homer, but he was 1-3 with an RBI single and 2 more walks. Shane McClanahan pitched the final three innings, allowing 1 run for his 1st save of the season. Somehow Lynch and McClanahan managed to hold Vlad Jr to an 0-5 day.
Some more breaking trade news:
De La Cruz has come up often when I've shopped various players so despite his success this year for whatever reason Atlanta seemed eager to deal him. His control has been anomalously good this season: last year he had 43 walks in 56 innings (with 72 Ks) but this year he's only walked 14 in 53 innings with 69 Ks. He's a 40 control but the "editor" has him at 34 walks in 80 IP so he's really somewhere in between. Either way he's an upgrade on Jimenez whose spot he'll take, and he also some potential as a starter as he's started 1 game for the Braves and shut out the Phillies in it. Abbott is an excellent young arm obviously but I could part with him. Jacob isn't anything special and will just take Abbott's place at Montgomery.
Game 3: After hitting 14 HRs the past two days, the Rays only managed one today at Rogers Centre, but all it did was put the finishing touches on a 10-2 win as they swept the Jays, scoring double digits in each game. For about half the game it looked like it would be nothing like the other two games as it went 1-1 in the 5th as Toronto's Matt Wisler was matching Max Fried. But the Rays got 3 in the 5th, with Wander doubling in Nick Schnell (who was 4-5 with 2 steals today and whose OBP is now. 508) and then Gregory Polanco dropped an Austin Meadows flyball that allowed Wander to score, and Rafael Devers doubled Meadows home. They added 3 more in the 7th on a Meadows RBI single then 2 more runs scored when 2B Aramis Ademan threw away Seth Beer's ground ball. The HR finally came in the 9th from Triston Casas, his 3rd in 2 days as he got the start at 1B with Alec Bohm rested. It was almost kind of sad that the HR came off Nate Pearson, whom the Blue Jays have moved to the bullpen and made their closer as his stamina rating has dropped to 35 coming off labrum surgery last year. He still has the stuff as he struck out the side around the Casas HR and a Rafael Devers triple but to see the 2021 Cy Young winner mopping up in a blowout is a bit jarring. While all this was going on Max Fried went about his business and did his best to exorcise the ghosts of his ALDS Game 4 meltdown in this stadium. He went 8 5 2 2 1 6 to improve to 10-4, 3.46. And in what surely must be one of the signs of the apocalypse, Scott Barlow pitched a perfect ninth inning, striking out Vlad Jr. The team is now 50 games over .500.
Team record: 79-29.
And congratulations here:
Snell is having a great season with the Mets, the first time he's put together a full season (or at least the first 2/3 of the season) of effectiveness
and good health since his 2018 Cy Young season. It was inconsistency and injuries that led me to deal him (that and being in the last year of his contract), but all credit to him as he's thrived in the Big Apple and signed a big extension with the Mets earlier this season. Perhaps we'll see him in the World Series.