Saturday Bantering

The Blue Jays took the first game of the series against the Phillies last night, bringing their current winning streak to four and record to 10-5 against National League teams this year. Tom has your recap right here.

For comparison’s sake, here’s the record for the other American League East teams against the National League East:

• Tampa Bay Rays 6-12
• New York Yankees 11-9
• Boston Red Sox 9-3
• Baltimore Orioles 7-13

Ryan Borucki was fantastic again, and it could be courtesy of... a new grip. Behold:

Danny Jansen’s big league call up only happened because of Russell Martin’s willingness to play third base, says Robert Macleod. His look into the mentor/mentee relationship between the two is a very worthwhile read. Jansen truly has one of the best to walk him through his first tastes of the big leagues.

John Lott had an excellent piece on Dalton Pompey up at the Athletic (paywall). He revealed Pompey is currently on the disabled list with back issues. He also gave a break down of the altercation with Bobby Meacham that led to his suspension:

Meacham requires all of his players to be on the field, limbering up, 12 minutes before game time. Pompey missed the deadline. Meacham let Pompey know he did not approve. Pompey didn’t like the way Meacham conveyed the message, and told him so.

Lott continued,

The confrontation occurred early in the first game of a doubleheader. Meacham immediately benched Pompey. When the outfielder saw he wasn’t in the lineup for the second game, he didn’t suit up. He stayed in the clubhouse.

Meacham was very complimentary of Pompey, fondly sharing a story where he found him working in the dark cages late at night by himself. Meacham told Lott that he “loves Pompey” and believes he is “one of the better hitters around.” Pompey reiterated, “there’s nobody in this organization that wants to be a Blue Jay more than I do.” Cue the collective “awws”

Tom shared this non-Jays tidbit in the GameThread, but it’s worth repeating. Justin Verlander was charged $1,000,000 fee for his meal at the Beverly Hills Hotel for being a “Dodger Killer.”

Speaking of legends, check out this GIF of a heroic dad saving his kid from a flying bat. He must have seen the “bat” signal, eh? EH?

mlb.com

Anthony Rizzo and Kris Bryant have matching BFF bats for Players’ Weekend, which is totally adorable. Just planting seeds for the future, Vlad Jr & Bo. Bicherrero? Guechette?

If you’ll excuse me, I’m off to dig deeper into my 23 & Me DNA test results. So far, they have told this dimpled gal she has a 56% of not having dimples.