Ryan Tepera Offers To Pay For Hazel’s Dry Cleaning

Most Blue Jays fans surely watched today’s game between the Jays and Rays, and so most of us probably saw Hazel Mae’s post-game interview with Justin Smoak — whose home run heroics powered the Jays to victory, alongside great performances from Chris Rowley, Danny Barnes, JOSH DONALDSON, and others. Meaning, of course, most of us saw Hazel get absolutely destroyed by a bucket of Powerade courtesy Ryan Tepera, who was aiming to give his teammate, Smoak, the kind of ceremonial dousing that has become something of a tradition after home games won via late inning dramatics.

Is the video of a thing like that really worth a full blog post? Years ago, maybe it would have been. These days, when we can all see this stuff instantly on our phones, it feels maybe a touch desperate.

Ahhh, but if we have pithy tweets about the deed after the fact? Now this mere highlight has become newsy enough for someone like yours truly to mindlessly type a bunch of words about!

And so we come to this evening’s big event. First, here’s Tepera’s laughably aimed attempt at giving Smoak a shower of Powerade — worth watching with the sound all the way up, because of the perfect splash those nice Sportsnet mics captured. And for Hazel’s reaction to her latest dousing. (Skip to about the 40 second mark if you must).

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Hazel was quick to drag Tepera, firing off this outstanding tweet at 7:24 PM — perhaps while still soggy from the affair!

Now, I must admit, it’s sometimes felt like maaaaaybe the guys on the team are intentionally aiming for Hazel. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t wondered that the last time — when she was collateral damage in Ryan Goins and Marcus Stroman’s dousing of Steve Pearce. And this one might have been even more blatant… if not for the fact that Tepera seems genuinely sheepish about it after the fact:

The least he could do, really.

And, unsurprisingly, our very own @_rallycap (aka Andy), has already got the perfect solution for the next time Hazel’s in the cross hairs…

See, now that‘s a blog post!