Blue Jays 6, Twins 2: Silver linings

The series is inherently more important for Toronto than it is for Minnesota, but after helping the Yankees gain ground last night, Twins fans can at least take solace in the fact that the Blue Jays fought back against the Bombers today.

The Toronto victory this afternoon — 6-2 the final — has brought the Blue Jays up a game in the standings, coupled with Cleveland’s 11-3 drubbing of the New York this afternoon. The Jays are now the third-place team in the American League East, and officially re-insert themselves into playoff position.

It’s an exciting time to be a fan in Toronto; it’s probably largely stressful, too. Thankfully, we don’t have to worry about any of that, as our 6-2 loss today has absolutely no implications on our own playoff races or baseline levels of stress.

Today, Twins fans got to enjoy yet another Josh Donaldson homer, a two-run shot in the first inning. Then, they watched in relative ease as Toronto scored six unanswered runs and held the Minnesota offense to four total hits in the game. If this game mattered to us, that would have been brutal! Instead, we get to enjoy the “mild disappointment” of losing one game in a meaningless season.

Toronto had a selection of well-timed hits from some of the usual suspects. Marcus Semien put the Jays on the board with his 40th homer, launched in the fourth inning. I remember seeing him in person when he was a light-hitting utility infielder during his early days with the Chicago White Sox. Things have certainly changed for him, and he’ll be one of many highly-coveted free agent shortstops in a few short weeks.

The big blow of the game was the three-run shot off the bat of Teoscar Hernandez, scoring Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. and Bo Bichette in the same inning.

Bichette would add RBIs of his own to finish the scoring, with a two-run single making it 6-2 in the home seventh.

All things considered, it was a very mediocre performance overall; while the Twins’ batters only earned four knocks, Bailey Ober would surrender four earned runs on four hits (two homers) and a pair of walks across his 74 pitches of work. Ralph Garza, Jr., Jovani Moran, and Kyle Barraclough would each get looks on the mound today; none would particularly inspire.

If you consider “tying run in the hole” to be exciting, then the Twins made it exciting in the ninth, only to officially lose when Ryan Jeffers whiffed swinging to end the ballgame.

STUDS:

3B Josh Donaldson (1-for-3, R, 2 RBI, BB, HR)

DUDS:

RP Jovani Moran (1.1 IP, 0 H, 2 ER, 4 BB, K)

C Ryan Jeffers (0-for-4, 3 K)

ROBOT ROLL CALL:

TOMORROWLAND:

The real must-see event of the season will be Jose Berrios’ presumptive return to Target Field; until then, we’ll get a preview Sunday afternoon, as he’s slated to face his former team for the first time since this year’s midseason trade.

Thanks for stopping by!