Stray Thoughts... - Opening Strays
Do you mind if I have some of your tasty beverage to wash this down?
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Well now that was more like it!
After a 2023 season that saw the Toronto Blue Jays struggle to hit home runs, struggle to hit with runners in scoring position—especially with two outs—and in which every time they fell behind in a game it felt like there was no coming back, the Jays opened 2024 with a come-from-behind 8-2 victory over the Rays—at the dreaded Trop!—behind three home runs, four two-out RBIs, a 3-for-9 day with RISP (with three walks), and a boss-ass performance from starter José Berríos.
IS THAT EVEN ALLOWED???
I don't want to get too carried away here, but it sure as hell was an energizing, moisturizing, tantalizing, romanticizing, surprising, her-prizing, revitalizing tonic.
Yes, it has indeed put some ardor in my larder.
Now, I know, the Jays scored 10 runs on opening day in St. Louis a year ago, and overcame a brutal Alek Manoah start—and a Yimi García blown save—to win 10-9, and look at how that season turned out. But did last year’s opener have this???
Vlad’s mighty wallop means that he needs to hit just 25 home runs over his next 161 games to equal last year’s total. George Springer, who along with Cavan Biggio also went deep, needs just 20 over the next 161 to match his. The Jays as a team need just six eighteen three-home-run games over their next 161 to match last year’s total.
Maybe even more impressive than a 450-foot bomb is way that manager J. Montgomery Schneider coached his players to do exactly that.
Speaking to reporters, including MLB.com's Keegan Matheson, prior to the game, Schneider explained the newfangled hitting philosophy the eggheads behind the scenes have told Jays coaches to implement this season:
“We want guys to do damage. Getting three or four hits in an inning consistently is hard to do at this level, so for the guys at the top, we want them to do damage.”
Jokes mostly aside, it was only a year ago that Ross Atkins—fresh from a winter of transforming his team’s personality into one that hopefully wouldn’t get roasted on TV by Buck Martinez every night for not being serious enough—joined the Sportsnet broadcast booth and could not have sounded more all-in on the idea that damage actually isn’t all that important.
Here’s how I wrote about the exchange at the time:
It’s already getting old to hear Buck talk about the importance of hitters going the other way—you know, constantly—but it’s not like it didn’t pay dividends in this one. And it turns out Ross Atkins is on board with it, too. When asked by Buck about his players’ approach he responded, “I could not be more pleased to watch that—to see guys pulling their hands inside, staying within themselves, and thinking about the whole field. It works. And the fact that the ball is not driven quite as hard as maybe a double in the gap is just because of where it hit the barrel.”
Oof. Swing and a miss, Ross. The 2023 Jays ranked 16th in baseball for home runs, after leading the league just two years prior. And at the time of this writing? They’re back in first baby!
Anyway, I don’t have a ton else to say about this one, other than it was just about as good a way for this team—for these fans, and for this franchise—to have the season start.
“There will be plenty of time for cynicism around the 2024 Blue Jays,” my Blue Jays Happy Hour cohost, Nick Ashbourne, tweeted, “but that'll have to wait for at least one day.”
Or, as Buck put it at the end of the telecast, “You can’t win ‘em all if you don’t win the first one.”
Hell yeah. Now here are a few quick thoughts.
Quickly…
• I'd be remiss if I didn't talk a little bit more about José Berríos, who looked confident and in control all afternoon—even after a misguided dive by George Springer allowed a Yandy Díaz to flare scoot almost to the wall in the bottom of the sixth, cashing a leadoff René Pinto double and quickly threatening the good vibes that had carried over from the top of the frame, in which the Jays scored five. Berríos went six strong, wasn't phased by giving up a homer to the first batter he faced, and allowed just two runs on six hits and a walk while striking out six. His velocity was up half a tick on his four-seamer, and over a full mile-per-hour on everything else, too. An excellent performance.
• Like Vlad and Springer, Berríos also managed to make his skipper look rather sharp.
• I’m not sure whether I should say “no lies detected” or “you love to see it” here, so I’ll just say both.
• Nick also tells us that Vlad’s 450-foot bomb was the longest he’s hit since April 10, 2022. Nearly two full years!
• Keegan Matheson tells us that John Schneider thought Vlad’s homer went more that 450 feet. Vlad, speaking to reporters, agreed, but added, “Hey, after 400, it’s all the same to me.”
• Let the man have his jacket!
• I suppose I ought to mention that Alejandro Kirk came up big with that two-out, bases loaded RBI single in the sixth, which was really nice to see after the tough year he had in 2023. And Bo Bichette—whose excellence has become so consistent that I think games like this are just expected of him—was 2-for-4 with a pair of RBIs, and a run scored. He also did a great job working a pointless one-out walk in the top of the ninth.
• Me watching Nate Pearson manage to get out of the eighth inning of a six-run game without allowing any runs.
• Nothing at all against him, and I'm very glad he's OK, but I must admit I didn't feel a whole lot of dread when Justin Turner was hit on the hand by a pitch and looked like he might need to come out of the game. Maybe Sportsnet can tell me what a great clubhouse guy he is some more, then perhaps I'll really start to get emotionally invested.
• Someone get Joey some better seats! (Image via Adam Laskaris/Votto’s Instagram).
(OK, OK, actually the first row of the second deck is actually pretty good, but you know what I mean.)
Coming up…
Lastly, it’s baseball—we love it!—and that means that the Jays and Rays will be doing it all again tomorrow.
The Rays will send Aaro Civale to the hill to make the first pitch at 6:50 PM ET. The former Cleveland Guardian came over to Tampa at last summer's trade deadline and suddenly became a higher strikeout guy than he'd ever been before. After punching out 58 batters in 77 innings in Cleveland he went and racked up 58 Ks in just 45 1/3 as a Ray. He did experience some regression in terms of his home run rate, and ended up struggling with BABIP (.370) and strand rate (68.8%), which helped balloon his ERA to 5.36 for his stint in Tampa, but his FIP was a tidy 3.63. However, all those K's went away this spring, for what its worth, and he allowed four homers in just 12 innings of work.
Sound pretty beatable? I wouldn't be so sure. According to Statcast's pitching run value leaderboard, Civale was one of the best pitchers in baseball at preventing runs last year. He ranked 29th with 18 runs prevented—putting him just behind Jordan Montgomery, and ahead of Eduardo Rodríguez. (The Jays' top pitcher by run value, Kevin Gausman, prevented just 16.)
Meanwhile the Jays will hand the ball to Chris Bassitt, who I'm sure we're all familiar enough with that I don't have to say much about him. An interesting matchup? Who cares, it's a ballgame that actually counts for something!
And also worth noting is that there will be something of an appetizer on the menu at 2:05 PM ET, as the Buffalo Bisons will open up their season against the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders. Taking the hill for Buffalo will be top Blue Jays prospect Ricky Tiedemann, who will be making just his second Triple-A start. It says it's going to be on MiLB.tv!
Let’s gooooo!
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Stray Thoughts again. Yay. I was saying this in the BR community last year, and texted into the Fan last night....Cavan Biggio is going to have a breakout, All-Star caliber season. After years of playing in the shadows of the other sons, and being injury bitten, he's figured it out and he's got more confidence. Wait, I think I said this here last year, too. Keep thinking strayfully.
It was a very nice game for sure. Who knows? Based on a sample size of 1 this team might just take care of business this year. But more importantly - perhaps the new turf at the Trop will break the house of horrors curse.