Quality Shoving: Sanchez, Bats Come Out to Win at Fenway.
After the loss to David Price coming on the heels of an alarmingly familiar Raptors' playoff loss, Toronto sports Twitter was in no mood for nonsense. No more stories about the Jays not hitting. No more stories about how David Price can make an impact on a team.
Aaron Sanchez has pitched in a way that has made the entire debate over whether he should be a starter, a debate that dominated spring training, seem completely ridiculous. Over seven innings of two hit, one run baseball, Sanchez pitched with serious drive. He shoved.
And really, he's shoved all along. Sanchez should really be 3-0 given the way he's pitched. Bautista, and his first inning homer, agree:
Whatever the Jays did Saturday night after those dispiriting first two games in Fenway, they need to keep doing it.
John Gibbons wisely decided to put Pillar back down in the eighth spot, replacing him with Michael Saunders. Gibbons needs to be given some credit for trying to get these guys going and for not being to stubborn to prove a point. And maybe the change helped shake up the offense a little. Or it might've been that this is the third time they've face Steven Wright in as many weeks. But the Jays had 14 hits. They left 11 on base, but lets not dwell.
Scary moment occurred when Wright accidentally beaned Chris Colabello. Colabello seemed more frightened than anything, but pitches at heads are never a good thing.
Wright was incredibly classy at the end of the inning and talked to Colabello. It has to be up there with the worst feeling. Playing baseball involves a certain amount of denial.
"Yes, I'm going to throw a hard object in the general direction of another person, and yes, it might fly back at me. But I'm going to stand here like it's nothing. "
Or
"Yes, this guy is going to throw a very hard object as hard as he can in my general direction, but yeah, I'll stand here, inches from its trajectory."
When that denial is shattered, the danger peeks out.
Luckily, Colabello's humour remained intact.
Forget the RBI, throwing a party for feeling ok after a pitch hit your head is plenty party worthy.
Wright, for his part, had this to say.
Mission accomplished. Now go win a game that starts at 11 AM and split this bitch.
Bloopers. We got bloopers.