Don’t jump!

Come on now, don’t do anything crazy here. Just come back down from that ledge and let’s talk this through.

Remember last season when the Red Sox came to the Rogers Centre for the Blue Jays first homestand of the year and the Jays swept the World Champs three straight? I guess this was just a little payback for that.

One aspect of the game that certainly didn’t work to Toronto’s benefit was the umpiring at home plate. The Blue Jays had every right to be pissed at some of the called strike threes; check out this great piece at The Mockingbird that shows how the hometown Red Sox had the benefit of “Marvelous Marvin” Hudson working in their favour from behind the plate.


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If you think about it, the pitching staff for the most part did what they were expected to do in this series. Brian Tallet had a solid game and the Blue Jays rookie starters were beat up by one of the most traditionally strong offensive teams in the American League. You can’t necessarily depend on your number four and five starting pitchers to pitch shutout baseball all the time.

The offense wasn’t even that bad for the Blue Jays either. Last night they had 11 hits, but unfortunately 10 of them were singles. It was truly a series were the Jays were left hanging, as 29 total men were left on base over the course of three games at Fenway Park.

On the upside, there are still 13 more games to play against the Red Sox this season, three of which will come next weekend at the Rogers Centre. It’s definitely not time to panic in Blue Jay land; but to all those fairweather fans who say that the ship is sinking, the exits are located to your left and right at the back of the bandwagon. We need those seats for real fans anyway.

Ian Hunter

Ian has been writing about the Toronto Blue Jays since 2007. He enjoyed the tail-end of the Roy Halladay era and vividly remembers the Alex Rodriguez "mine" incident. He'll also retell the story of Game 5 of the 2015 ALDS to his kids for the next 20 years.