Game Threat: Acestrada Gets The Ball In The Third (Fourth, Kinda?) Game Of The Series, Blue Jays (43-39) vs Clevelanders (49-30)

The Cleveland Baseball team has increased their franchise-record winning streak to 14 games yesterday with a marathon win in Toronto on Canada Day, and based on the way that it seemed to give Trevor Bauer and Cleveland fans some odd sense of nationalistic pride, it would be really nice for the Jays to kill this streak today. 

Coming in at six hours and thirteen minutes game was jam packed full of excitement, garbage, and more! But the game was so long, and loaded with so much weird “what the fuck, baseball?” stuff, that it’s easy to forget probably the most meaningful positive thing hidden beneath all of the storylines. And that positive was the start that Marcus Stroman twirled, as the young ace threw his first good start (against an actual MLB team) in quite some time. 

Before Friday, the last time Marcos Stroman tossed a game that you would expect out of somebody that was deemed your ace heading into the season was way way waaaaaaay back on May 6 against the Dodgers. Between then and now, The Stro Show has been, well, not very good, getting drilled for six or more runs four different times, and only lasting through more than six innings twice (and those came against the Phillies and Twins, which doesn’t really count). 

Anyways, Stroman looked excellent yesterday, which is a great sign. I think anybody who isn’t completely daft knew that he would eventually figure himself out, considering the development of young pitchers is never as straightforward as we like to expect, but still, it was nice to watch the Stroman from late last season that we all know and love again. 

Yesterday also featured some excellent, noteworthy performances from pitchers out of the bullpen. And pitchers out of the infield. First of all, damn, hats off to Ryan Goins and Darwin Barney, who managed to pitch two innings of one run ball. How Cleveland only mustered a single homer off two infielders is beyond me, but hell yeah, that was fantastic. Before Barney allowed that homer, Brett Cecil, Jason Grilli, Roberto Osuna, Joe Biagini, Jesse Chavez, Drew Storen, Bo Schultz, and Goins, so, the entire bullpen and Goins, combined for eleven-and-a-third innings of shutout ball allowing only nine hits. 

But unfortunately, the offence wasn’t redeemable at all. The Jays could only scrape one run off of Cleveland’s pitching staff, who, well, lived up to the title of best pitching staff in the American League. That said, there were multiple opportunities with runners in scoring position to pound a run home in extra innings, but the batters failed to capitalize. Maybe it has something to do with this hilariously bad strike zone? Or the fact that their best hitter was tossed from the game in the first inning? Probably? 

After all that, the Jays will add some reinforcements to their bullpen, as Aaron Loup and Hutch will join the team, considering, ya know, literally everyone pitched yesterday. 

I’m about to get on an airplane, and Cleveland hasn’t announced today’s starter, and neither team has announced their lineup…. Sooo… Yeah! Enjoy the game! Enjoy Acestrada Day! And win, goddamit! I can’t handle anymore wrongly earned nationalism from this team.