Note: I know the Featured Image is of EE in a Blue Jays uniform. Consider it a hat tip to his time there and the classy Toronto fans.

There were a lot of storylines in this particular baseball game: the Indians traveling to Toronto for the first time since last year’s ALCS, the city of Toronto generally not liking Cleveland due to LeBron James’ majority ownership stake in the Toronto Raptors, Travor Bauer trying to find his mojo again…

…oh, and some guy named Edwin Encarnacion was returning to Toronto for the first time since spurning them to sign a big money free agent deal with the Indians. To the Toronto fans’ credit (and they really are great fans), they gave Edwin a warm reception and a standing ovation for his first at-bat. Edwin returned the favor by not hitting a home run, but he did get two hits, so I have nothing bad to say about him.

Trevor Bauer on the other hand…. I don’t know about this guy, honestly. This loss wasn’t squarely on his shoulders — he did allow four runs (frustrating runs, to be fair), he did walk three batters, but he battled through six innings to really spare a bullpen that needs to be spared given the injuries and inconsistencies up and down the roster, so Bauer should really be commended for his effort, and he wasn’t awful in this game. He wasn’t even bad. He was mediocre with a couple frustrating moments (like the 0-2 meatball he served up to Ryan Goins, who was hitting something around .100 over his last 7-8 games), and really, frustrating was the order of the day.

The Indians just could not break through against the Blue Jays. Much has been made about their lack of hitting with RISP (which will normalize) and their scuffles in the lineup (which will normalize), but man, this was a frustrating game to watch. 1-12 with Runners in Scoring Position (a common refrain), and they hit into three double plays, all of which short curcuited promising scoring opportunities.

The most frustrating moment came in the 6th inning. With the Indians trailing 4-0, and runners at the corners, Jose Ramirez hit a surefire 2-run double that short-hopped the wall in Centerfi– oh, wait, Kevin Pillar made an unbelievable catch. You can’t even do anything but tip your hat to the guy — there’s very few guys in the world who can make that catch, and Ramirez hit it towards one of them. Take a look:

Other than that, there were a number of balls ripped into the seats that were just a little bit foul, and a handful of hard line drives that ended up in outfielders’ gloves at the wall. That 1-12 with RISP number is misleading, the Indians hit the ball well tonight.

As Tom Hamilton said — “well, folks, it looks like it’s just going to be one of those nights.”

And it was.

The Indians tried to rally in the 8th, when they got two runs on a Francisco Lindor single that included a dubious interference call that allowed Lindor to end up at second base, but it was all for naught. An Encarnacion strikout followed, and Jose Ramirez followed him back to the dugout with a disgusted look on his face some handful of pitches later.

On to the next one.

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