Baseball home openers are very different than other major league sports; they are calm and relaxing and in a way, kind of polite. The Jays were honored for their philanthropy work in Canada; they honored R.A. Dickey for winning the NL CY Young Award last season and Mark Buehrle for the Gold Glove award that he won with the Marlins. Tom Cheek was honored for winning the Ford Frick Award and at the Rogers Center they played old audio clips of Tom Cheek and they also played some historical Jays moments. When the Jays were being announced the new acquisitions were cheered for the loudest along with Jose Bautista. After a moment of silence for the people of Connecticut, the anthems were played and Geddy Lee of Rush threw out the first pitch and the Blue Jays season commenced.
The final score was 4-1 in favor of the Cleveland Indians. Dickey struck out four batters, but walked another four and a homerun that was hit off of him. Funny enough, he was in shock that the ball was hit out of the park and so was Asdrubal Cabrera. I wouldn’t blame Dickey for the loss as the Jays had a few opportunities early in the game, but didn’t cash in on it and unfortunately JP Arencibia lost a couple of possible double opportunities because he had three past balls in the game. It was not the best game ever, nor was it the worst. I foresee RA bouncing back and here is a fearless prediction; I think he will have a 16+win season. You also cannot win them all so don’t worry Jays fans, there is more baseball left! This was one game out of 162 games to be played this season and there is a lot of baseball left! The Jays have a powerful roster and should be able to compete (like they did today) for the rest of the season. There is always room for improvement and one thing they need to improve on is beating their divisional rivals – it’s imperative in the AL East.
Last season against their division, the Jays had an awful record of 29-43. On the road against the AL East they were 12-24 and slightly better at home with a 17-19 record. Still they were not playing over .500 baseball at home against these teams, and that can’t be repeated. The only winning record was against the Red Sox at 11-7, but lost more at home to the Sox, while their worst record against a division rival was against the Rays at 4-14 with a 1-8 record in Tampa. Against the Yankees and O’s, they were no better with a 7-11 finish against both teams. The biggest concern for Toronto could still be the Rays, the Jays all-time record against the Rays is 121-136, and the last winning season against Tampa was 2007 at 9-9 and since then the Jays have been 29-61, let us hope this revamped team can figure out the Tampa Bay Rays. If the Jays can beat their division opponents a bit more this season (and many signs are pointing to that as a possibility), the Blue Jays will have a very successful season ahead of them.
Noticeably weird Notes/Questions:
Why do the Jays walk out to the Imperial March from Star Wars if they are supposed to be the good guys?
J.P.Arencibia will need to practice catching the knuckleball, or there will be a lot of free bases this season.
The games attendance was 48, 857. Is it just me or is this stadium slowly losing seats?
The Jays play 2 more against the Tribe and then a 3 game weekend series against the Boston Red Sox.
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photo credit: james_in_to via photopin cc
