I believe I can fly, Dept.

 ...............

=== Gameflow:  Jays get to Insano ===

Thames' homer was off a 97 Insano fastball.   Nothing wrong with 97 MPH, unless you're going to quibble that down-and-in is the wheelhouse to a lefty.  

What the hey, it ain't like pitchers can hit the mitt every time they huck the ball.  Whattaya want.  Wilhelmsen didn't throw the ball much differently than he did any other night.  Sometimes the hitter swings in the right place, and sometimes he doesn't.  That's all.

A second miracle run scored after Insano threw the ball down to the RF line.  We mention this because some amigos feel like we maybe oughta give back the win, due to the fact that the 5th Mariner run scored due to an error.  Um, no.  Lots of baseball runs score because of errors.  Both teams' 5th runs scored tonight because of errors.

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=== Gameflow:  Romero Out of the Game, M's Revert to 15-Hit Mode ===

Lawrie could have ended the game on a 5-3 assist, but yipped at the release and short-armed an error, keeping the game alive.  

The 1986 Mets are not giving their World Series back, and take this with you:  New York fans don't talk about "getting away with one" in 1986.  The 1986 Red Sox didn't have to lose Game Seven, and the 2012 Blue Jays didn't have to lose the baseball game after the error.  After it, their chances to win stood at 92%.

The Jays' chance to win was 96% before Seager's at bat, 99.7% as Lawrie took the ball in, and 92% after Seager was safe.  The M's grabbed that 8% chance all by themselves.

Hey, when the M's make an error in the 9th and lose, does that feel like a real loss?  No, the real story of the 9th inning was John Jaso's line single up the middle.  That is the play on which the M's winning chances changed from 17% to 35%.

The Mariners had been no-hit through five innings, not because they forgot how to hit, but because Ricky Romero is precisely what Danny Hultzen hopes some day to be.  Awesome lefty changeup, 92-95 fastball, good curve ball.  Hope you watched it closely, because Ricky Romero is the UP for Mr. UVA.

But after five innings, the M's spitting and snarling had Romero worn out ... and they had 11 hits and 3 homers over their last 15 outs.

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=== Gameflow:  Mariners Bully the Jays in Extras ===

More on Mr. Saunders elsewhere.  Pure ownage, eh hoser.

The Angels, having added Albert Pujols and C.J. Wilson, are 6 and 14.  You realize that these 14 early losses may mean that the Angels win 88 games rather than 94, even if the Angels get it together and go 82-60 (a 95-win pace) the rest of the way.  

Twenty-one games ago, the Mariners' chances of grappling for a Wild Card were a lot lower than they are this morning.