Outside the Confines: Blue Jays fly in the Bronx

Happy Friday to everyone and a happy welcome home to Kris Bryant. I wish him all the best in the world after Sunday.

• The American League Wild Card chase just got more interesting as the Blue Jays swept a four-game series with the Yankees. Toronto is now just a half-game behind the Yankees for the second Wild Card spot.
• Even with this, Neil Paine is worried that the hottest team in baseball (Toronto) might miss the postseason anyway.
• Andrew Simon examines Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s chances of winning the Triple Crown.
• The Yankees have lost six straight. Gabe Lacques explains how the Yankees season has gone south recently.
• Part of the Yankees problems are injuries and they suffered some more as starting pitcher Jameson Taillon went on the IL with a torn ankle tendon and reliever Zack Britton underwent Tommy John surgery.
• As long as we’re on the Yankees, we might as well discuss the Hall of Fame induction ceremony. Anthony Castrovince has all the highlights from the ceremony.
• Zach Crizer writes about how Derek Jeter’s greatness showed up the most in the postseason.
• Tim Kurkjian has an oral history of the most famous play in Derek Jeter’s career: “The Flip” to retire Jeremy Giambi at the plate in the 2001 Division Series.
• New inductee Larry Walker wore his SpongeBob Squarepants pin to the ceremony.
• Over in the National League, Jack Baer writes that starter Max Scherzer has been everything the Dodgers hoped he would be when the acquired him at the trade deadline.
• Brittany Ghiroli and Maria Torres have an oral history of Scherzer’s major league career. (The Athletic sub. req.)
• David Schoenfield writes about how the Padres are struggling to take control of the second Wild Card spot, despite the excellence of Blake Snell.
• Schoenfield also writes that the Mariners really could make the playoffs, despite a terrible run differential, thanks the the M’s’ “fun differential.” (ESPN+ sub. req.)
• Kevin Goldstein is having trouble understanding how the Rays are so good with their current starting rotation, or lack thereof. He thinks Tampa Bay has been great at “mitigating risk” with their pitchers.
• Mike Petriello makes the case that the Brewers’ Corbin Burnes has been the best pitcher in the NL this year, although he’s unlikely to win the Cy Young Award because of the number of innings he’s thrown.
• Hannah Keyser brought some of the “sticky” baseballs back from the Olympics and the major league pitchers she spoke to really seemed to like them. Keyser thinks they could be the answer to the foreign substance issue with pitchers, but the problem, from MLB’s point of view, is that they’re made by a Japanese company and not Rawlings.
• Eno Sarris has five struggling hitters on teams in the playoff hunt that could turn out to be the difference (The Athletic sub. req.) in the playoff hunt.
• Ben Clemens looks at why Royals first baseman Carlos Santana has been so poor the past two seasons.
• Will Leitch has ten players who he believes will hit 40 home runs one season.
• Anthony Castrovince has 11 “bonkers” statistics from the 2021 season.
• Braves outfielder Marcell Ozuna has agree to a pretrial diversion program that could end up in the domestic violence charges he currently faces being dropped. Ozuna could still face a long suspension from MLB.
• MLB has officially denied an accusation from Red Sox player Hunter Renfroe that they told Boston to stop testing the team for COVID.
• Mike Axisa looks at the new trend in baseball of the intentional balk.
• Orioles broadcaster Kevin Brown paid tribute to the late Michael K. Williams with a home run call this week. Williams was one of the stars of the Baltimore-based TV show The Wire.
• And finally, a fan in Oakland didn’t bring his glove to catch a foul ball so he just caught it in his fanny pack.

And tomorrow will be a better day than today, Buster.