For starters, would you just look at this win expectancy graph?
Source: FanGraphs
It’s like an emergency room cardiac monitor. Up and down, back and forth — the pulse of a hot Sunday game that continued to beat all afternoon. If there was ever a contest that seemed like it was just sitting there, waiting for one of the teams to win it, this was it. If you watched it you know there was no point in the day when anything felt certain.
That is until the end, when Melky Cabrera made a sliding catch on an Ichiro Suzuki liner that was dying in flight and popped up to his feet, fist pumping and pulling his jersey out of his pants as emphatically as one can do such a thing. Casey Janssen pounded his glove and Dioner Navarro pointed to the sky and as the players charged through the five-five line, celebrating their 5-4 victory over the Yankees, you could feel the significance of the moment; you could see it on their faces. It was the team’s first series victory in the Bronx since 2012, a minor detail that shouldn’t be that meaningful but — in the scope of this team that’s inherently talented and plucky but so often seems to be on the wrong side of fate — really was.
These mid-summer ballgames can be easy to gloss over; easy to blend into the scenery at this point in the season, when the days are their longest, and work is its most tedious, and you take your dog on the extended version of his walk because it’s so damn pleasant outside. The MLB season is so lengthy and day-to-day changes in the standings are so minimal that it can be easy to miss a lot of very significant things that happen.
And, boy, did a whole lot of things happen on Sunday. The underwhelmingly effective J.A. Happ was terrific, holding New York to just a hit through four innings. And then he wasn’t, giving up a home run to Chase Headley in the fifth (the first homer Happ had surrendered in 31 innings). That was immediately followed by a routine fly ball from Francisco Cervelli that counted as a homer as well because whoever designed Yankee Stadium figured baseball was hard enough. A 2-0 Blue Jays lead was nullified in the span of three pitches.
Meanwhile, Munenori Kawasaki was everywhere. First he was making a blind, ridiculous, gently-welcome-the-ball-as-it-dropped-over-his-shoulder-from-the-heavens catch in the third, sliding to a halt in full sprint and lofting the ball back to first base where he doubled up Zelous Wheeler (real name) who was sure the blooper would fall in.
Then he was working a deep count against widely-feared Yankees reliever Dellin Betances in the eighth, taking 98 mph heat and fouling off a pair of buckling breaking balls before getting one he liked and skying it to the opposite field (where Brett Gardner, playing the homerless Kawasaki shallow, had to retreat to collect the fly ball which robbed his ensuing throw of all power) for a go-ahead sacrifice fly, scoring Colby Rasmus from third. (It should also be noted that Rasmus arrived at third when a Bentances pickoff attempt sailed about five feet east of first base, a rare instance of fortune shining on the Blue Jays)
Dan Johnson was thrown out at home. Steve Tolleson was thrown out at home. Juan Francisco hit a ball that might have landed in the East River if not for the second deck of outfield seats at Yankee Stadium. And injured Colorado Rockies superstar Troy Tulowitzki watched it all from the stands in a “There’s always money in the banana stand” t-shirt because, why not? I told you a lot of things happened.
Plus, we’re not even touching Aaron Sanchez, the baby-faced right-hander who made the second big league appearance of his life in a hell of a situation, trying to maintain a tie game in the seventh and then guard a one-run lead in the eighth. He was successful in the former but failed in the latter when Carlos Beltran tied the affair with a two-out liner to left field, scoring Brett Gardner from second. Sanchez was less than pleased about it, but you can’t ask much more of the kid than to spot a lively, sinking 98 mph fastball down and away like he did. Beltran’s a borderline Hall of Famer, one of the great hitters of a generation, and one of the few guys who could have hit that pitch.
And as one of baseball’s most inherently flawed statistics would have it, Sanchez was the recipient of his first major league win less than half an hour later, after Jose Bautista stole second in the ninth and scored on a Navarro single to right field. That gave the Blue Jays their fourth lead of the afternoon and maybe the only reason the Yankees didn’t claw their way back into it again was because they ran short of outs.
So that’s how you get such a varied win expectancy graph. You have an afternoon when anything, and everything, happens. In a way, the game embodied the American League East race that the Blue Jays and Yankees have been ensconced in since the leaves were blooming this spring; a race that likely won’t be decided until those leaves are falling from their branches.
Just like Sunday’s game, a baseball season is a back and forth thing, with its intoxicating ups and depressing downs. Take the Tampa Bay Rays, a team that was widely written off in late June when it was staggering on its feet with a 33-49 record. They went on a run (the Rays have lost just five times in July) and are now quietly lurking in the AL East weeds, just 4.5 games out of the playoffs.
So, yes, what the Blue Jays have done since the all-star break — winning seven of ten — is very, very good. And what they did leading up to it — losing eight of ten — was very, very bad. But as tempting as it may be to forecast and predict, neither of those two runs are going to make or break the season.
It’s baseball. You try to win more than you lose because that’s really all you can do (And seven games against the lowly Red Sox and Astros to close the current road trip sure seems like a good opportunity to do that).
But as the Blue Jays celebrated under the sun at Yankee Stadium, it really felt like Sunday’s triumph was meaningful. It felt significant. Even though it was just another mid-summer ballgame.