I love those notes right after the game......

  That thing aroung Glaus' knee is simply to make sure his knee doesn't bend too much one way or another when he slides or run.

  I hope this win gives some momentum crowd-wise.  Some support would show Mr. Rogers some dollars may be worth giving at the trade deadline if the Jays are in contention.

That was fun. Hopefully we get a lot more games like that one with so many different guys contributing. That shows the depth J.P. was going for in the offseason.

Methinks Hinske won't be playing much RF this year......It's only one game, but Rios looked damn impressive against both lefties and righties.  Let's hope he keeps it up.

Nice game, boys!

I also enjoyed the tribute to Tom Cheek. You got it right Dave, having Shirley Cheek throw out the first pitch was a classy move. I got a little misty eyed watching it. All of Tom's calls through all that Jays' history.

I must say that I miss listening to Tom Cheek like crazy. Every time I turn on the radio to listen to a Jays game (which is more often than I see it on tv) I still expect to hear his "Hi everybody...." at the start of each broadcast. His announcing the games certainly added to my enjoyment of them (sometimes it was the only thing to enjoy).

Don't get me wrong, I like Jerry a lot and Warren is....well...Warren but I will always think of Tom whenever I hear a game on radio. I don't think I will ever get over that. He was the best.

I felt tingly just watching the game at home; I really wish I had forsaken an assignment and made the trip to the Cable Box. The game was magnificent, but nothing was more encouraging than watching Alex Rios. Just before his homerun, I commented to the rest of the group (that assignment never had a chance, anyway) that he deserved better than just one hit off of his three hard hit balls. His stance is noticably different, though it still doesn't look like he's using a lot of lower-body.

I found it interesting that SS LOOGY got up in the 8th rather than Bo Jr. We had heard that he wasn't going exclusively going to be a one inning guy, and the way the Twins lined up, it seemed like an opportunity for a four or five out save if any trouble started brewing. I think having Doc on the mound factored in here - it may be that Gibbons was going to let him go until he got into trouble and he's not going to get Ryan warming unless he's definitely coming in. This is something to keep track of as the season moves on.

What was the wind up to in left tonight? There was no mention of it on the broadcast, but Sparky and Stewart both struggled with a couple of flies and both the Twin homeruns seems to catch some sort of jetstream (homerism? never!).

There are going to be games in the next 161 that feel really lousy, but this one feels pretty damn good.

• The ball was just jumping off of Rios' bat tonite. With the exception of the infield squibber, everything seemed to be laced.
• Wells, on the other hand, didnt seem to have it. Its only game 1, but the crowd was definately getting on his back - especially with the bases loaded situation in the uh.. 5th?
• I've decided that I love all the guys sitting behind the RF fence, right in the corner. They were razzing Kubel all night.
• The entire place was electric in the 9th, when BJ came out. Good times.
• I want to see a head-to-head 100 dash between Glaus and Molina. I dont know who's slower. It seemed like a close play (from my angle) at second on Glaus' 2b, and if Kubel hadnt air-mailed the throw on Hillenbrand's SF, Glaus would have been toast.
• And speaking of Glaus - I predict a lot of 1-4, 1 XBH, 2K evenings for him.

And oh yeah. Note to in-game host. Lose the bow-tie. Seriously.

• It was packed. At the peak, very few blue seats showing. Very boisterous crowd, and into the game. I didn't hear, not once, "Go Leafs Go." No idiots tossed stuff onto the field. Nobody ran onto the field. The crowd was loud, attentive, and encouraging. I am certain that, after the game, B.J. said to his colleagues, "I thought y'all said Toronto fans were quiet."
• Blue Man Group was well-done. All labour objections aside, I enjoyed their anthems. The sound accidentally cut out for a few seconds in the middle of O Canada, but it didn't matter because the crowd was belting it out at their patriotic best.
• B.J. Ryan is huge. Seriously, an enormous man. He pitches very quickly: get the ball, throw the ball. The crowd started cheering very loudly as soon as the bullpen door opened, and it only got louder (and rose to its feet) as the inevitable conclusion drew near.
• Molina's homer was truly driven. The crowd went apeshit when he hit it, too. I expected him to give us a wave with the loud cheers of "Ben-Jie! Ben-Jie!" after his homer, but I guess it would be seen as showing up the batter, whose at-bat had already begun.
• I got so excited when I saw the potential in this season. The crowd was going bananas, and there were lots of signs out there. "Smells like 92-93." "I BELIEVE." I have a really good feeling about this.
• (By the way, I think NFH was behind the "We miss you, Tom" banner? It got featured in Tom's memorial video.)
• Some guys on the GO Train, who were discussing baseball, gave me the "Please go away, crazy person" look when I told them "Hey, have you heard of Batter's Box? You'd like it."

This game cannot be put into words. Some notes:

-Got to the game at about 11am, pulled up a folding chair and waited for the gates to open. With flag waving, welcomed AJ Burnett, Vernon Wells, Pete Walker, Vinnie Chulk and a tinted window pimped out hummer, who I felt was Bengie. I was interviewed by about 7 networks about the Jays, so if you're watching TV and see the flag crazy nutbar ranting about how awesome the world is, it's probably me.

-Disappointed to not see a Bengie Molina curtain call after the crowd was chanting his name. BEN-GIE! BEN-GIE! BEN-GIE!

-Crowd was disciplined and just plain hardcore Jays fans.

-Excellent pre-game show as a whole, the videos, the tributes, a 10 sur 10.

-Trying not to shed a tear during the Tom Cheek one.

-Standing ovations for player introductions. Sweet.

-Glaus is Boss!

-The Bengie chants carried on throughout the game. He's going to fall inlove with Jays fans.

-We were sitting in the 100 level bases seats by the baselines and you coudl FEEL the anticipation of B.J. Ryan in the pen. This feeling in your gut of having a bonfide closer ready to explode from the pen, I now realize exactly what it is like to be a Yankee fan.

-The crowd noise drowned out his music, which I believe was Duality.

-Fourth largest crowd in Opening Day history. And this was WITH the 2,000 seats removed this year. We were about 2,000 fans over capacity.

-No delivery truck race and no whoring of advertisements. There are no ads on the concourse, instead picture after picture of Blue Jays players.

-I sent an email to the Jays two weeks ago wondering why they don't play music condusive to crowd noise (i.e. AC/DC, Van Halen). Despite them not returning my email, I was pleased to listen to "Right Now" by Van Halen as the Jays were introduced to some seriously loud ovations.

-This trumps the 18 inning game as the best. game. ever.  Maybe Thomas will get those twenty page essays out of the way next time :)

Just got back from the game (hour and a half trying to get out of underground parking off of Front aside) and man was the crowd electric.  Some notes:

Let it be known until otherwise proven that I got the first official game ball tossed into the crowd of the season by none other than Jason Phillips, who seemed to enjoy the Ali G references from a few of my friends enough to toss a ball our way.  Let it also be known that at the age of 25 I think I'm the oldest person at RC still to bring a glove to the game.  It's nights like this it pays off though, certainly a more valuable experience than having Aquilino Lopez sign my glove.

I can only speak for our area, but left field 100s was a monsoon of noise all night, constantly hounding Shannon Stewart all night up until he hit the homer.  Despite what someone else said, I saw at least two separate occasions where people threw things at him and came awfully close (first was something orange, second seemed to look like a mini baseball and the ump actually called time on it.)

20oz. beers = 9.50.  In other words BYOB if you're brave enough.  I was at the all-star game in Detroit last year and even there they didn't charge close to that.

Rios was scorching the ball tonight, but what really impressed me was his jump out of the box.  To me it seemed like he was finally running as fast as what I'd expect form someone of his physique.

BJ's stuff both in the game and in the bullpen beforehand was disgusting.  Of all the new acquisitions, he's the one I'm most optomistic about, even with the 5 year deal.  If every night works out as well as this one it should be an exciting season!

Quote of the Day comes from Ben-gie Molina:

"Unbelievable feeling. Unbelievable," said Molina, who holds a .478 career average against Santana. "[I've had my name chanted] only a few times in the playoffs. It felt good. It felt great. I just hope [the fans] know that they are a big part in this."

Yes we do, Bengie.

Opening day thoughts by Jobu (because 132 other ones just aren't enough):

Tonight was a very special episode of "Too Many Molinas!: Toronto".  After Jose solved a murder that morning, all the Molinas! jumped in the MolinaMachina! and dropped off Bengie at the RC.  Bengie was very shy in his new clubhouse and missed his brothers. He also got spooked by a mummy he saw at the ROM the other day.  But Dad Shulman came into the clubhouse and told Bengie if he just did his best, he was SURE that his new teamates and fans would love him.  So Bengie put a Molina! swing on a ball and crushed it to the 5th deck.  And because of that, I got to chant "BEN-GIE" with 50K other fans, watch BJ mow down hitters like staying in the set position was out of style, and Rios grow into his man-strength, causing JP to run on the field and embrace him and shout "I just cant quit you Alexis".

The moral of the story is: Love all creatures.... no wait....Well, tonight's episode doesn't have a moral. It's one of those "very special" episodes of Too Many Molinas! The point is I had a fantastic time at the ballpark, and so did alot of other fans, and I can not think of a more glorious first episode of Too Many Molinas!:Toronto.  Welcome Benjie.

The thing that struck me was that good as Doc was, he didn't seem to have his A game-there were a lot of hard hit balls, and of course it's fairly rare for him to give up two home runs in one game. Also, he seemed a little less sharp on comebackers than he was last year-I thought it was kind of weird for gv27 to say that he doesn't field a lot of ground balls, because Doc's the pitcher I most associate with the scoring notation 1-3. That said, a decent night for Doc-which this obviously was-is a very good night by any standards.

So far, things look good-I hope Rios' homer was a sign of things to come, because if it was, look to your laurels Eric Hinske...

Man, I've been a Jays fan my entire life, but this is the first season/home opener I've ever watched due to no cable for most of my life and then college which also had no cable.

I know 200 or so people have already said it, but Rios was one of the highlights of the night for me; to my untrained eyes, he has always seemed overmatched against big league pitching, but today he took control of his at-bats.  He evened seemed more patient with some pitches than last year.  Of course, I'm just brimming with optimisma nd don't want to hear anything about "it was only one game"....maybe tomorrow. 

It was interesting to see Doc operate at around 91-93 mph for most of the game with his fastball and then dial it up to 96 mph at crucial times; I especially noticed this after Adams' error.  Which brings up another thought: Adams, despite his error seemed to have a little more zip on his throws than last year when it seemed that all throws traveled to first with an arc, today they seemed more of a line drive variety [but that may just be my rose coloured glasses speaking (also, that was an awful sentence...)].

I'm truly grateful to Glaus because until his double down the line, Santana was cruising.  He broke the ice so-to-speak.

Aside form the '92-'93 playoffs, this was the most enjoyable game I have ever watched.

Hmmm... notes. Lets see.

1. Everyone has observed (and rightly so) that the ball was jumping off Rios's bat. What was more impressive for me was that he was hitting the ball strongly to right field. This is a welcome change from 2004, when he hit the ball both ways, but with the power of an out-of-gas Juan Guzman; and last year when he laboured to pull the ball and lost his ability to make contact.
2. The stadium was electric. Out of the last four home openers, this was the only group that felt like a genuine baseball crowd.
3. Even without Diamond, Ace still bugs me.
4. Much less in-between music. The PA system should be used to rile up the crowd, not replace it. The Jays got that just right.
5. The Blue Jays have the youngest-looking team I've ever seen.
6. Four years in a row I've gone to the home opener, and in the last three a fight has broken out either in my section or an adjacent one.

In summary, colour me cautiously optimistic. This team looks like they're here to play, and the fans are doing there part. My only question is, what happened to the magnets?

"Even without Diamond, Ace still bugs me."

I for one would love it if they brought back BJ Birdie. We should start a movement! Who's with me?!

All and all, I would have to say that tonight was pretty much how JP drew it up on the chalk board. What a great game to watch. The live chat was the place to be.

Great to see Rios swing the bat well. He definitely had a certain, what the French call... I don't know.

Rios related Question: Is he arbitration eligible following this season, or following the next.

In answer to TJ Caino's question about Rios' arbitration eligiblity, Rios will have more than 2 years and 86 days of major league service after 2006.  He was called up in May, 2004.  He therefore could potentially be eligible for arbitration as a Super Two.

The collective agreement states at page 12 (page 25 of the pdf file) that

 "In addition, a player with at least two but less than three years of major league service shall be eligible for salary arbitration if he has accumulated 86 days of major league service during the immediately preceding season, and he ranks in the top 17% in total service in the class of players who has at least two but not three years of service."

Now, once you've clicked on the link, make sure to come back.  Collective agreements can be intoxicating.!

They showed, in attendance, schlumpy everyman actor Paul Giamatti on the jumbotron last night.

D'you think he gets, like, a free lifetime pass to every baseball game ever? As commissioner, I'd grant that sort of perq to my offspring.

On the way home last night, I too was thinking that i couldn't really recall a game i had attended that was more fun, more uplifting.

Just one strategy question if people would like to comment. In the sixth inning, i believe, Hill came to the plate with runners at first and second, none out, score 3 to 1 if i recall. My row was calling for Hill to bunt to advance the runners - Gibbons didn't agree, and Hill hit into a dp. Obviously my row looks okay in hindsight especially as the inning ended with the bases loaded and only one run in despite a mess of hits; but what would other armchair managers have called with Hill at the plate?

There is no right answer to the question.  As it happens, I cited the relevant win expectancies (in the 5 run per game context) for this precise situation in my review of The Book.  Essentially, a successful sacrifice in the 6th inning with a 2 run lead and runners on 1st and 2nd with nobody out in general terms would not change the win expectancy. 

What I would recommend with a smart player like Hill is to give him the option depending on the positioning of the fielders, and his comfort level with Santana's stuff.  There are in my view very few situations where a non-pitcher should be required to sacrifice, but this does not mean that bunting should be discouraged.  It is easier for the player to maintain the element of surprise and to make strategic adjustments than for the manager.

Gibbons' decision to not mandate a sacrifice was perfectly understandable.

Mike G, I haven't yet read The Book, but I do have a conceptual question about the sacrifice situations.  (Maybe it's answered in The Book.) 

Rather than a generally applicable "win expectancy" formula, might it not be more useful to come up with some sort of measure, whether it's OPS or GPA or opponents' OPS for the pitcher, that serves as a cut-off for when it makes sense to mandate a sacrifice bunt?  For example, in the Aaron Hill situation, you would never have Pujols bunt but you would always have a pitcher bunt.  Where in between those two poles is the dividing line?  It's a sliding scale, and win expectancy charts both indicate in which direction you slide and indicate the value of playing for one lone run.  But  as a manager, I'd find it useful to know the answer to this question:  "How unfavourable of a batter/pitcher matchup does it have to be, given this score and situation, to make a bunt the smarter play?"  Were it a closer game, I would definitely think the numbers would favour a bunt in, say, an Adams/Santana matchup (his clutch single notwithstanding).

Last night, the A's had Jason Kendall bunt the eventual winning run over, and while obviously there's no need to play for a big inning in the bottom of the ninth of a tie game, I still suspect that the decision was based in large part on Kendall lacking the power and/or on-base skills of the hitters behind him.

The problem is that it is not only the batter you have to concern yourself with, but also the likely productivity of the following two (at least) batters.  Win expectancy for the various outcomes in a bunt situation doesn't give you the answer; it just provides useful information about the percentages. 

Just to complicate things further I would like to add one further consideration.  Placing Adams at the bottom of the order against a tough lefty was a wise move by Gibbons, not just from a game perspective but from a longer range view.  Adams is under considerable pressure and this batting order reduces the pressure.  Calling for a bunt from Hill would have increased the pressure on Adams.  There would not have been anything wrong with Hill bunting on his own, but in that case, the goal would have been for Hill to reach base safely (this was the original idea of the sacrifice bunt in general), and even if the result was simply a sacrifice, Adams would know that the manager did not call for it.

I can only speak for our area, but left field 100s was a monsoon of noise all night, constantly hounding Shannon Stewart all night up until he hit the homer.  Despite what someone else said, I saw at least two separate occasions where people threw things at him and came awfully close (first was something orange, second seemed to look like a mini baseball and the ump actually called time on it.)

A bunch of drunk guys sitting a couple rows down from me threw the "orange" thing. It was actually the cheese package from his Nacho's. The weirdest part about the whole thing was that Stewart put the cheese in his pocket, if it were me I probably would've thrown it towards the fence -- not put it in my back pocket.

What were Stewart's comments?   Did he complain about getting booed?

Upcoming fun from MLB's game report: "Chacin -- dressed in a white lab coat fitted with a Blue Jays logo and the words "Chacin Enterprises" -- was given a number of beakers filled with fragrances that he mixed and matched until he found the perfect smell. The concoction will be bottled and delivered to 10,000 fans on "Chacin Cologne" giveaway day on June 27 against the Washington Nationals." 

The Jays' website has a photo gallery up featuring Chacin and the beakers.

This has the potential to be the greatest promotional giveaway ever.