Boy, we needed that.
I was faced with the world’s most wonderful scoring conundrum in the first inning when the Blue Jays sent eleven batters to the plate against floundering Barry Zito, scoring six runs—Melky Cabrera and Jose Bautista had two at-bats each in the frame, which had me frantically scrambling to figure out what to do. No one at the ballpark could quite believe what was happening. Six! Runs! In the first! (Yelling!)
In the end I used the boxes in the second inning—sure feels nice to be on the happy side of a card like this for once.
When Zito finally got Bautista to line out to Sandoval for the third out of the inning, the Rogers Centre was on their feet applauding the team’s ridiculous first (or perhaps standing for Zito?), something I don’t think I’ve ever seen. In the end, the Blue Jays scored ten runs for a second game in a row but without hitting a single home run, which is easily the weirdest part of this whole wild night. Ten runs on eighteen hits, all in the ballpark!
Maybe things are getting better.
Dickey: 6.0 IP 6H 2ER 2BB 10K!
Zito: 5.2 IP 12H 8R/5ER 2BB 2K
Dickey, might I add, got Buster Posey to strike out swinging twice.
And first star Melky Cabrera went 4 for 5 with a double, scoring twice and reaching base the fifth time on an error by Pablo Sandoval. Can he get a ring every day?
Guys, I forgot what winning decisively was like and the Blue Jays have done it twice in a row against teams doing much better than they are. This is actually fun. I haven’t been so relaxed at a Blue Jays game in ages.
Tomorrow, Ramon Ortiz vs Ryan Vogelsong … a duel for the ages.
My friend Greg Wisniewski asked if I’d contribute to his 2012 wrap-up series over at Baseball is Magic. I wrote a little piece about Barry Zito’s insane performance in Game 5 of the NLCS. It’s up now and you can go read it! Hooray.
In case you are interested, here’s the box/play-by-play of NLCS Game 5, and of Zito’s other postseason appearance, NLDS Game 4.
