1:00 PM Eastern

The plan is to do a relatively-live blog of the Jays’ grapefruit opener against the Tigers, but I forgot one major thing – the often-crappy internet connections at a lot of these ballparks. I’ve been betrayed once already today, so if I vanish for a long time without warning, you’ll know why.

Some notes from before the game: B.J. Ryan threw well and looked good in his first live batting practice session, he’ll get checked out by Dr. Timothy Kremcheck (as planned) in Sarasota later today. The Jays are hopeful he’ll get into a Grapefruit League game by the middle of March.

Nate Robertson isn’t starting for the Tigers because his wife Kristin had a baby (Wyatt Dale) at 1:23 this morning. Virgil Vasquez gets the call in his stead.

Also, the media dining room here at Joker Merchant Stadium is decidedly not Jew-friendly. Pork chops and chicken cordon bleu! CP’s Shi Davidi and I settled for the concession stands. Interestingly enough, one of the featured items here is the Panda Bear Panini. Sadly, it contains no actual panda meat.

The game blog follows below, to be updated around every half-inning, or whenever something really cool happens. If I leave to go down to the clubhouse, I’ll let you know.

3:25 PM Eastern

While I was gone, nothing happened.  Actually, that’s not true.  Lance Carter, Shawn Camp and Josh Banks pitched a perfect inning each, John McDonald almost killed Macay McBride with a liner back through the box, Matt Watson made a tremendous leaping catch against the left-field wall to rob Polanco of at least a double, if not more, and Russ Adams walked and stole a base.   But we’re in the bottom of the 8th and it’s still 4-1 Tigers.

I have to do a lot of radio-type work now, cutting up and filing the clips I got from Litsch, Chacin, Purcey, Johnson and McDonald – all of which you’ll be able to hear throughout the day and night on the FAN590.  I’ll throw another wrap-up post up there when it’s all done.

2:25 PM Eastern

This is going to be it for a while, I’m heading down to talk to Litsch and Chacin, but I wanted to stay and watch Purcey throw the 4th. He started by giving up a towering double into the right-field corner to Renteria – Lind almost got there to make a nice catch – but he stranded him there. Purcey followed by painting the outside black just beautifully to ring up Thames, and then retired two lefties – Jones on a routine fly to left-centre and Granderson on a sky-high pop up to short. So we’re through four, and it’s 4-1 Tigers.

2:15 PM Eastern

The first Jays run of the spring! And it’s unearned! Barajas finally got the Jays in the hit column with a leadoff double deep into the left-centre gap, and then the new back-up catcher showed off his distinct lack of footspeed by making it all the way to third on a soft line single by Buck Coats, and staying there on a medium-depth fly ball by Inglett. He scored when Miguel Cabrera absolutely butchered a routine grounder by Cannon. The ball wasn’t hit especially hard, and it was right at Cabrera, but he took a hard step to his left, then kind of bounced, didn’t get his glove down at all, and the ball went right through his legs.

2:00 PM Eastern

Listen…….do you smell something? It’s our first Gustavo Chacin sighting since last April. It’s nice to see Gus out there again, with the funky delivery, the cool blades and, as always, giving up hard-hit line drives all over the field and not getting scored on. The first three hitters Chacin faced all squared him up – a hard line-out to left-centre by Pudge, a line single ripped to dead centre by Ordonez, and a humpback lineout to second by Cabrera. Chacin finished the inning by throwing a tremendous curveball that got Guillen flailing.

1:51 PM Eastern

Ahhhh, the marvelous and predictable strike-zone inconsistency that is Matt Mantei. The former Zona closer came on and struck out Chip Cannon on three pitches, then went 3-0 on Travis Snider. Snider took the next pitch down the middle, then took ball four. (Right now the drunks are saying a word that starts with a “b” and rhymes with “specific”.) Reed followed with a liner to centre that Granderson made a nice play on going back and to his left. He plays awfully shallow, but that guy can cover some ground. Another five-pitch walk followed, this to Johnny Mac, and Scutaro then went WAY out of the strike zone upstairs on a 2-2 pitch, and popped to second.

1:41 PM Eastern

Litsch started well by striking out Renteria looking and Thames swinging, but he then walked Jones and got a 1-1 pitch up to Granderson, who belted it into the palm trees beyond the right-field fence. Polanco grounded out on a nice short-hop by Inglett to end it.

1:32 PM Eastern

A 1-2-3 second for the Jays, though Lind and Inglett hit ropes to the outfield. Inglett’s liner required a pretty diving catch by Jacque Jones.

1:26 PM Eastern

After getting Curtis Granderson on a lazy fly to centre, Litsch gave up three hits in a row. Polanco reached out and poked a ground single to centre just past a diving Scutaro, and Ivan Rodriguez reached down and poked a soft line single to centre. Magglio followed by ripping a shot down the left-field line for a two-run double. Reed got on it in a hurry, and made a strong relay throw to McDonald, but Johnny Mac muffed the transfer (you can tell it’s spring, his hands haven’t caught up to his brain yet). Two weeks from now, that’s an easy 7-6-2, assuming Reed and Mac are there, but that’s not exactly a safe assumption.

1:17 PM Eastern

The Jays tried the hit-and-run right away with Johnny Mac, but he hit a lazy fly to right. Reed wound up getting to second later on on an errant pick-off throw from Vasquez, but he stayed there as Scutaro flied to shallow right and Barajas, after fouling off a couple of two-strike pitches, popped foul to catcher.

1:07 PM Eastern

That didn’t take long – Reed Johnson led off the game by being hit with a pitch. Who knew?

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