The party is over. If you'll all just grab your stuff and leave, there won't be any hassle. The party's been closed, it's – the party is over with. Grab your stuff and go, and nobody goes to jail.
Jays 6, Twins 1. The Blue Jays’ run differential now stands at 19-4. The good teams don’t win the close games, they avoid them. So far, so good.
Friday night was almost perfect: a raucous sellout crowd, nice ceremonies for Jose Bautista and the Hall of Fame class, a four-run first inning rally made out of two singles and an E4, a big day for J.P. Arencibia, four longballs, and a strong showing from Ricky Romero. The only way Opening Day could’ve been any better would be if we weren’t sitting right in front of a row full of bros yelling vicious catcalls and hysterically stupid prop bets, or if I hadn’t been directly behind a guy who stood up for innings at a time talking on his phone and waving frantically to his friend a few sections over, or if Titus Andronicus’ show hadn’t sold out. Can’t win 'em all, but Kyle Drabek made up for all three wrongs by throwing seven dominant one-hit innings at the Twins yesterday. I know I’m not the first person to notice this, not by a long shot, but Drabek’s fastball and cutter really move. He induced a lot of tentative swings up and down the Twins’ lineup. It’s totally unfair to start the Roy Halladay comparisons, but the weapons Drabek has at his disposal are similar to Doc’s, no?
Homer count after two games: Arencibia, Bautista, Lind, Arencibia again, Molina, and Nix. I particularly liked Molina's: with no hits on the board for either team in the third inning, Molina sold out to a first-pitch changeup from Francisco Liriano and landed it in the Jays’ bullpen. 1-0, home team. Good sign. The way this season is going, I assume McDonald is going to park a Nick Blackburn meatball in the upper deck today.
Aside from Drabek’s performance I thought the most interesting development yesterday was the attendance. 27194 people showed up to Toronto’s second home game of the year. For some perspective, in 2003 the Jays opened up at home against the Yankees. Round 2 of that series drew 15176. To me, this raises these questions: (1) How did it take MLB this long to figure out its season should begin with a weekend series? (2) How much of yesterday’s crowd was overflow from the long-sold-out home opener? (3) They’re giving away a bobblehead today – is it possible they’ll get an even bigger crowd today? (4) Where do the Jays end up in the attendance rankings if they go 81-81 this year? 94-68? 68-94?
The Jays are now two full games ahead of the clearly overrated Red Sox and will try to finish off the sweep this afternoon. Brett Cecil will start for the Jays. All eyes will be on the radar gun – Cecil’s velocity was down in Dunedin. Does it matter if Cecil’s throwing 87 instead of 91? If so, how much? I don’t know where to start answering that. It should help that he’ll be facing a lefty-heavy lineup today. Blackburn tries to stop the bleeding for Minnesota. Jays -135, first pitch 1:07.
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20110403055250753