Messy in the Dark: Blue Jays down Yankees
The silence of this space is now being broken because I love some messiness.
The 2020 Toronto Blue Jays are a messy-ass team. They have somehow found themselves in a playoff spot despite the fact that they like to live on the edge of losing in nearly every game, forget basic fundamentals of good baseball and have a manager who makes “wait…what?” type decisions
This team is so messy, they actually made the Yankees messy. Well, I guess they didn’t actually make the Yankees messy. The 2020 New York Yankees are currently in a very unexpected place: 3rd in the AL East, having lost 14 of their last 19. They arrived in Buffalo messy.
The Blue Jays scored 10 runs in the bottom of the 6th inning, capped by a grand slam by Danny Jansen. It also featured a stolen base by Vlad Jr., just to get it even messier.
Look at how messy this is:
However, the peak messy part came after the game. Yankees catcher Kyle Higashioka suspected that Adam Ottavino couldn’t see the signs because it was so dark:
“A lot of it had to do with (that) he had a tough time seeing the signs," Higashioka said when asked about New York's pitching struggles postgame, according to Rob Longley of the Toronto Sun. "It's pretty dark there. Once it really got dark, yeah. I had the stickers on my fingers but it still seemed like it didn't help much."
He added: "I guess I'll have to take a look to see if they were maybe tipping or something. We were a little erratic that inning."
Adam Ottavino concured, “It's just bizarre," Ottavino said. "Myself and (fellow reliever Chad Green) didn't get any swing and misses that whole inning and we're both well above average swing and miss pitchers.
"Not getting swing and misses, it's either an indication that my stuff wasn’t good, my location wasn't good, or that they had something on me. They either had a great approach or they knew what was coming, any of that."
So it was too dark to see the signs AND the Blue Jays knew what was coming (i.e. stealing signs). Are the Yankees arguing that the Blue Jays can see in the dark? Are they raccoons?
Complaining about stuff post-game?
The Yankees got so messy, a Blue Jays minor leaguer dunked on them on Twitter.
The best part of the grand slam (besides the runs) is that you can hear Vlad Jr.. and Gurriel hooting as the ball leaves the yard. You can hear it above the piped-in crowd noise.
Here is the photographic evidence:
Though it is a miracle we were able to witness this at all, it being so dark.