Let me preface this explanation of the events of April 18th, 2017 by saying that I am not a professional scientist. I am also not a professional time traveller. I have, however, seen every episode of Star Trek and ST:TNG at least twice, and also viewed several episodes of Dr. Who from when he had an enormous afro. You’ll recall this because the aliens were mostly made of a combination of papier-mâché and old fridge boxes with buttons glued on them. Given those qualifications, I’m sure you can see why you should have a high level of confidence in the following technical explanation for the unusual events of the game in question.
The first thing we have to realize is that the 2017 Blue Jays have sucked from the moment the season began. They have continued sucking, with hardly a momentary exception, for the whole first half of the month. As I write this the Blue Jays have a .153 winning percentage. You know the old baseball adage that you will win a third of you games no matter what? The Blue Jays have lost half of those too. When we accept that the sucking is real, we can accept that the suck is generating gravitational forces. Gravity is the scientific sucking force of the universe, there’s no disputing that. However, the Blue Jays sucking force is not normal like that of, say, the San Diego Padres. There is a built in metaphysical compensation for a team trying to suck. The universe expects that kind of gravity, and can stabilize around it. The Blue Jays suck so much more than expected we have to factor in the exponential difference between the expected and actual suck factors. They have created an fantastically powerful vortex of suck. They have sucked in such a profound way that on April 18th, they tore a hole in the fabric of the universe. I have proof.
It began innocuously enough. While observing the game on MLB.com’s Gameday app and following along on Twitter, I noticed that events were transpiring on my timeline but not on the app. I initially chalked this up to a problem on my phone but I was astonished to find, in the third inning, that I was not alone.
Hey my Gameday hasn’t updated for a few minutes now so I’ll pretend that’s still the score and that they’re in a rain delay. pic.twitter.com/FrbGYG9ZUu
— Minor Leaguer (@Minor_Leaguer) April 19, 2017
Sure, that seems like a simple computer error but it was really a harbinger of things to come. The Blue Jays in our universe had allowed the Red Sox to tie the game, an event with such gravity that time literally had slowed down in the Gameday universe, and began to drag behind the universe that we could view on television. Some scientists believe we live in a multiverse where in all possible universes, all possible sequences of events occur. In this Gameday universe, perhaps we were really seeing the effect of a rain delay in a domed stadium. The effect did not dissipate easily.
Gameday is now one full inning and 4 runs behind in the game. Not really ideal for keeping tabs on the game.
— Greg Wisniewski (@coolhead2010) April 19, 2017
At this point I was still under the mistaken assumption that I was ‘watching’ the same game. In fact, time had slowed to a crawl in Gameday universe. It was almost as if waiting to see how many ripples the gravity of Jays suckiness would create. And if you thought this was a glitch in the feed from a computer at the Rogers Centre (or is it still the Skydome in this strange universe?), I have evidence that it is not!
@coolhead2010 Same for the #Nats #Braves game. @mlb #gameday is over an inning behind.
— Dan R (@danr) April 19, 2017
This effect is truly widespread! Suddenly though, it seemed as though the Gameday universe had snapped back into synch like a rubber band.
Aaaand Gameday just caught up! Good work everybody!
— Greg Wisniewski (@coolhead2010) April 19, 2017
However, as the bottom of the sixth proceeded, the strangest schism of the night was about to occur. As observed by everyone in attendance at the stadium, Kendrys Morales approached the plate with two men on and two out. In our universe he struck out to end the inning.
I’m probably at another game with a different Kendrys Morales pic.twitter.com/yvG3D17kTQ
— Richard Lee-Sam (@RLeesam) April 19, 2017
Not in the alternate Gamday reality! Through our window we were able to view alternate Kendrys hit a solo home run…. with two men on base! Somehow, though, that wasn’t the only universe leaking information into ours. There is a twitter account that tweets every MLB home run that is hit every night, and it had more to reveal…
Kendrys Morales – Toronto Blue Jays (3) 3-run
— MLB Home Run (@MLBHR) April 19, 2017
Yes there is an alternate alternate Morales. And he DID hit the home run with the right number of men on base. He’s in MLBHR universe, where he hits a dinger every night. For unknown reasons he had to wait until after the first alternate Morales hit his solo bomb, maybe there was a mound visit or something.
The final clue that these peeks into an alternate version of reality might not be as mundane as we first imagined comes from the top of the seventh.
This Red Sox lineup is so good, even their strikeouts come around to score pic.twitter.com/8QGHAzx7dV
— Richard Lee-Sam (@RLeesam) April 19, 2017
What are the rules of baseball in Gameday universe? More importantly, if the Blue Jays played with those rules in our universe instead, could they win more than one game a week?
Honestly, we don’t know if the Blue Jays will continue to suck this much. I don’t have a degree in theoretical physics, but my theoretical degree in physics tells me they might. (Apologies to the writers of Fallout: New Vegas) And it might be cataclysmic. In fact, it might be time for the league to grab Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens from a wormhole to the late 1990s to help the team out. Not for the enjoyment Toronto fans; for the betterment of the fabric of reality itself.
Lead Photo © Nick Turchiaro-USA TODAY Sports