Friday, June 21, 2019 | 7:10 pm
Fenway Park | East Massholia, MA
PREAMBLE:
The Blue Jays, relieved to get the gorilla off their backs, head to Fenway Park for a three-game series against the Red Sux. Certainly made for a more enjoyable flight to Boston.
Trent Thornton looks to continue a series of solid starts, including his best one of the season last time out against the Astros. He'll face off against Chris Sale, who is having an off season by his standards. Sale is a career 0-2, 9.00 against the Jays in Fenway Park, though he's been very good his whole career against the Jays in stadiums not named Fenway.
Vlad's first time playing at Fenway. Time to rattle the Monster, Vladito.
NOTES:
That HR last night by Billy McKinney? It's the 50th walk-off home run in Blue Jays history. (No word on whether that figure includes the ones hit by Joe Carter and Edwin Encarnacion in the post-season)
Should be fun tonight in St. Louis ... Albert Pujols return to Busch Stadium for the first time since leaving as a free agent in the 2011 off-season. He's now a withering husk of his former self, just riding out the remainder of his contract (which the Angels were kind enough to pay him for his years of service in St. Louis), but he should be quite well-received for everything he did as a Cardinal as a slam-dunk first ballot HOFer. Also one of the greatest draft bargains in MLB history -- picked in the 13th round of the 1999 draft by the Cardinals.
Emma Baccellieri of SI did some digging in Baseball Reference to kill some time during a rain delay the other day, and here's some facts she found:
- Baseball has had 40 pitchers who went "Lefty" as a primary name (i.e. that's how they were listed on B-R), but none since Lefty Hayden pitched in 1958. This is not counting nicknames being used as a secondary name, such as 'Lefty' for Steve Carlton.
- The Tampa Bay Rays, at the moment, are on pace for the 3rd best team ERA+ in MLB history at 146 ERA+, behind the 1906 Cubs (151) and 1909 Cubs (147). Right behind the Rays are the 1905 Cubs (146) and the 1907 Cubs (144), so I'm sure you're sensing a pattern by now...
- That 1906 Cubs team had a pitcher by the name Orval Overall. Fun name.
- As of June 18th, there have been 19,232 players; 1,971,904 runs scored; 306,601 stolen bases; 518,577 errors; and 387,206 double plays in MLB history.
You really can go rather deep down the wormhole sometimes.
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