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This won’t happen, but I would like yesterday’s game to serve as the final nail in the coffin in the concept of “momentum” in baseball. The Blue Jays won their final four games of the regular season, needing every one of them, to win the AL East. They won the first game of this series 10-1, the second 13-7. They led the third 6-1 in the third inning. If momentum in baseball actually existed, the Blue Jays would have gone on to another blowout win and be setting their ALCS rotation this morning.
The momentum didn’t “shift.” That’s not what momentum does. (Seriously, man, open the schools.) Momentum is a physical property related to mass and velocity that, in sports, has simply come to mean “the property possessed by a team that is currently doing well.” It’s word-shaped air, spouted in lieu of an original idea. Momentum, in sports, isn’t real, and if Yankees 9, Blue Jays 6 can’t convince you of that, nothing can help you.
The momentum didn’t “shift.” That’s not what momentum does. (Seriously, man, open the schools.) Momentum is a physical property related to mass and velocity that, in sports, has simply come to mean “the property possessed by a team that is currently doing well.” It’s word-shaped air, spouted in lieu of an original idea. Momentum, in sports, isn’t real, and if Yankees 9, Blue Jays 6 can’t convince you of that, nothing can help you.
