1:00 AM Eastern

With the exception of the near-forfeit in the 8th inning, the Blue Jays couldn’t have opened the season in more perfect fashion.

They climbed all over Justin Verlander early and never let him up off the mat, adding on runs in a fashion that we didn’t see too terribly often in the past couple of years after building an early lead.

The rally in the first inning started with a two-out, none on walk to Alex Rios, and ended with Lyle Overbay swatting a two-run double into the left-centre gap, something we saw a whole lot of in 2006, and that I’m hoping we get to see again with relative regularity this year.

Every starter got at least one hit, but Adam Lind and Travis Snider blew the doors off.   The two guys who will be getting the bulk of the 923 plate appearances that last year went to Brevin Mencherson, Shannon Stewart, Matt Stairs and Frank Thomas with little effect combined to go 6-for-9 with a double, two homers and seven RBIs.

The rest of the team wasn’t all that bad, either.  The Jays went 4-for-13 with runners in scoring position (.308) and every one of the four baserunners who made it to third with less than two outs wound up scoring with less than two out (or on the second out), including a daring scamper home by Marco Scutaro on a shallow fly to left by Aaron Hill in the 4th.

Roy Halladay was sensational through six innings, facing two batters over the minimum on a two-hitter before hitting a speed bump in the 7th, and after Brandon League allowed a pair of ground ball singles with two out in the 8th, Scott Downs came in to get out of the jam with one pitch.

It was a great night, in front of over 48,000 mostly great fans.  Thankfully, the few unruly idiots didn’t spoil it for everyone else.

It has become a bit of a tradition at Rogers Centre, when there’s a big crowd, for people to throw paper airplanes onto the field from the 500 level.  On its own, that’s not such a bad thing, though when there are dozens coming down it gets to be a little silly.  Never before, though, had I seen baseballs being thrown onto the field (unless it’s the immediate return of an opposition home run ball), so I was surprised when, after Adam Everett booted a grounder in the 8th, I saw Tigers left fielder Josh Anderson pick up another baseball in short left.

About a minute later, Detroit manager Jim Leyland came out of the dugout to talk to umpiring crew chief Ed Montague, and after another baseball was thrown from the stands, Montague pulled the Tigers off the field, for their own safety.

There was a nine-minute delay before play resumed, and the Blue Jays came close to forfeiting the game.

Idiots.  Really, I mean, what else is there to say?  Idiots.  There’s never been a better argument in favour of those who have ordered the ballpark to be dry for Tuesday night’s game.  At least Opening Day is the only time they seem to come out.  The rest of the season, it appears as though the Jays draw fans who have actually had a beer before.

Despite the fact that tonight’s edition of The JaysTalk began with two negative calls in a row, it turned out to be a pretty good show.  I do apologize for giving the last caller so much rope.  I probably could have fit in a couple more calls if I hadn’t.  Sorry about that.  Here it is:

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Enjoy it, because there won’t be another JaysTalk until Thursday afternoon, at least.

And hey, how about me not turning on the microphone when I was down on the field interviewing Lind after the game?  Man, he said some terrific stuff before we figured that out.  Oh, well.   Chalk up one more in the “I’m a moron” column, it won’t happen again.  I’m not sure whether or not they’ll want to do more of those on-field post-game interviews, but keep an eye (or an ear) out for them anyway.  I think it wound up going pretty well, post-glitch.

Because of the Raptors game Tuesday, you’ll have to go to TALK820 Hamilton to find our broadcast if you’re in the Toronto listening area.  Make sure you tune us in!

And how cool is it that four years ago this very minute (as I type this) I was in a delivery room at Trillium Health Centre in Mississauga about 45 minutes away from the birth of my second daughter, Gillian.  It was a moment that took my breath away – especially since she was two weeks overdue and came out with her hands and feet white as chalk and her skin all peeling and stuff – and she has provided me with now four years of ensuing moments that have taken my breath away.  Happy Birthday, Super G!

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome.

4:00 PM Eastern

Well, at the very least, it means there weren’t any spring rainouts, which is a good thing when you’re trying to schedule starting pitchers towards a specific date, which is the goal of Spring Training for every team (that, and staying healthy).

You’ll note that when you look at spring standings, the Blue Jays will be listed as 13-17 for the spring.  There are two reasons for that:  1 – there’s no place to list ties in baseball standings, which is as it should be, and B – the games the Jays played against Team Canada (a loss) and Team U.S.A. (a win) prior to the World Baseball Classic don’t count in Grapefruit League standings, because they’re considered exhibition games.  This, to me, could not be more ridiculous, and therefore I ignore it. You don’t count exhibition games in exhibition standings because, why, they were “exhibitionnier” than the other games that don’t count either?  Mind-bottling, I tells you.

Anyway, after 35 spring games and 14 spring wins I can tell you with unmeasurable confidence that the Blue Jays are now 0-0, tied for first through fifth in the AL East with Boston, Baltimore, New York and Tampa Bay.  That’s how much spring training means.

There was only one major injury all spring, which is great news for the Jays, and it wasn’t even that major.  By “major” I mean a player who would have started the season with the major-league team won’t because he got hurt, and that player is Casey Janssen.  Fret not, though, Janssen should be back in the bigs by mid-May, at the latest.

The way the team looks breaking camp, with the exception of the 4th starter, is the way the Jays had planned the team to look going into camp.  From the time I got down there this spring, I was told “Kevin Millar hit 20 homers last year”, “Joe Inglett has options” and “Scott Richmond keeps us in games”.  The dies (dice?) were cast for them early, so long as everyone stayed healthy.  You knew Michael Barrett was going to win the back-up catcher’s job, even though Raul Chavez made a strong case, because real decisions aren’t made based on five weeks of exhibition games, they’re made based on histories and track records.  Which is the same reason that Jason Lane didn’t make the team, despite being the Jays’ King of Spring.  Brett Cecil was never going to make the team because the Jays can better control his innings at AAA, and maybe control his service time, as well. I realize they CAN control his service time wherever he pitches, but service time may have had more than a little to do with his demotion. I think it has way more to do with his innings, though.

Eyes were opened by players like Brad Mills and Brad Emaus, both of whom really put themselves on the Jays’ radar this spring.  As little as the outcome of spring games means, and it couldn’t mean less, the opportunity for young, unknown up-and-comers can’t be quantified.  They get the chance to perform in front of the major-league coaching staff, to pick the brains of big-league coaches and players, and to show everyone in the front office what they can do.  That, as much as getting pitchers stretched out, is what Spring Training is all about.

The season begins Monday night with Roy Halladay taking on the Tigers and Justin Verlander, and it should be a great night – a sellout crowd, a well-pitched game and what used to be a fantastic rivalry.  A balanced schedule remains my hope for MLB, and that would certainly help renew the old Jays rivalries like those with the Tigers, Royals and A’s while still keeping alive those with the Yankees, Red Sox and Rays.

Expectations are low for the Jays this season, but they were much higher the last time these two teams met on Opening Day at the Dome.  Five years and one day prior to this year’s lid-lifter, the Jays and Tigers went at it with the Jays coming off a surprise 86-win season and the Tigers coming off a 119-loss nightmare.  Detroit smacked Halladay around to the tune of a 7-0 beatdown – Jason Johnson went six shutout innings for the win – the Tigers wound up sweeping the series and the Jays eventually went into a death spiral that saw them finish last in the East with a 67-94 mark, their worst year since 1981.

A lot of people seem to think the Jays are going to have a similar year this year, and I think they’re really looking through whatever-the-opposite-of-rose-is coloured glasses.  For some reason, it’s enjoyable for some to want to be ahead of the “I told you so” curve – but only in a negative sense.  They make dire predictions, talk about how much everyone sucks and deserves to be fired, and say they’ll likely be tuning out on this Jays season before the first week is up.  If they’re right, they get to tell everyone they always knew it, and if they’re wrong, they’re pleasantly surprised (although they probably wind up still saying they knew it all along).  I guess it’s a good defense mechanism to insulate yourself against disappointment, but it must just suck all the enjoyment out of everything.  Sports are supposed to be fun – they’re kids games, remember – and passion, excitement and frustration are all part of it.  But the excitement has to be there, too, and not just excitement about them losing because “see, I told you J.P. was an idiot.”

I certainly don’t want to have the same kind of pointlessly negative comments in this space that I saw last year, and they’re starting to creep back as we get closer to Opening Day.  If you want to make a rational negative point, be my guest, if you want to criticize with some thought behind it, fine by me.  Just putting it out there.  I love a good debate, but most of the people who consistently post negative comments here aren’t looking for a debate, they’re looking for a shout-fest.

Before I wrap up this final pre-season post, some people have been asking me for my predictions this season, and I want to answer by saying I’m not going to make team-by-team, division-by-division predictions, because they’d be guaranteed to be wrong.  Just like every other pundit’s predictions.  No one knows what’s going to happen this year, or any year.

I’ll say this, though.  I think the Reds, Braves and Giants are going to be a lot better than most people believe they will be this season, and I expect the Brewers to finish with a losing record.

In the American League, I think the Rays will have a precipitous fall-off and that the A.L. East will be won in relatively easy fashion by the Red Sox.  I expect both CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett to spend time on the disabled list this year.  I don’t think the Angels are nearly as good as they were last year, but there’s no other good team in the A.L. West right now, so they could win by acclimation, unless the A’s sneak up and steal the division from them.

As for the Blue Jays, anyone who has read or listened to me knows this, but I don’t think they’re nearly as bad as most people seem to think they’re going to be.  The starting pitching is significantly worse, but by the middle of June, at the latest, Janssen and Cecil will be in there and the starting rotation will be almost as good as it was for a lot of last season.  The bullpen has been the best in baseball two years running, and even though Jesse Carlson will probably slip back and B.J. Ryan is scuffling, it’s still a very good group, and this may well finally be the year that Brandon League becomes the guy we have thought he could be for the last three or four years.  The offense is considerably better, with at-bats that last year went to Brad Wilkerson, Kevin Mench, Matt Stairs, Shannon Stewart, Frank Thomas, David Eckstein and, yes, Joe Inglett now going to Travis Snider, Adam Lind and Aaron Hill.  Jose Bautista and Millar give the Jays better options against left-handed starters than last year (remember when Eckstein would DH?).  If Scott Rolen stays healthy, that’s a big boost, and a return to form by Lyle Overbay would be icing on the cake.

I see the Jays as an 82-85 win team that is likelier to win 90 than to lose 90, but not very likely to do either.  In my one prediction guaranteed to be wrong, I believe the Jays will finish third in the A.L. East this season.

And just in case you missed it, here’s the JaysTalk from Friday night’s win over the Fish.

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See you Opening Day!  Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome.

11:45 AM Eastern

Three rough starts out of four do not a case for the rotation make, no matter how good you were early in the spring, especially when you’re a young guy who has never seen AAA.

For some reason, Brad Mills doesn’t pitch well when I’m paying attention.  He shot the lights out at the beginning of spring, when I was still in Toronto, and then later on when I was hanging with Team Canada at the WBC, but as soon as I started watching or listening to his starts, the bottom fell out.  I can’t help but think that it’s my fault a bit.  Actually, I can, because it’s not, but that takes away from the story.

In the four starts that I have seen or listened to Mills pitch, he’s thrown a total of 20 1/3 innings and allowed 17 runs (14 earned) on  30 hits, walking eight and striking out ten. That’s a whole big pile of yuck, regardless of how many ground ball hits there were or how many times he didn’t give in or how many times he kept the team in the game (he left the games down 2-1, up 6-4, down 4-1 and down 4-1 with the bases loaded).

I don’t know if those four outings clearly show me that Mills isn’t ready for the big leagues yet, but they definitely have shown that a little more cooking in the minors wouldn’t hurt him, and he’ll get that opportunity for a month or two, at least.  And since I will be neither watching nor listening, he’ll probably dominate.

I have always thought that Scott Richmond was a lock to make this team.  They’ve been making exceptions for him ever since he came back from the WBC, letting him catch up, not worrying about the hits as long as he throws strikes.  As I mentioned in the previous post, I think he’s the perfect stop-gap, at the very least, until Brett Cecil is ready or Casey Janssen gets healthy.  And Richmond could work out into that solid, 4.50 ERA-type 5th starter who goes out and gives you six innings every time, allowing three runs on eight hits with no walks and two strikeouts.

I don’t think it matters how Richmond pitches tomorrow in his final spring outing – he’ll get the call in the Indians’ home opener April 10th.  And in fact, Alex Anthopoulos just announced that on the Fan as soon as I finished with Hoagie and Toth.

Yesterday, the bullpen was announced, and it’s the same Group of Seven that Cito Gaston had for most of his tenure – Ryan, Downs, Carlson, League, Frasor, Tallet and Camp.  Jeremy Accardo will go down to Vegas to find the splitter that made him so dominant two years ago, and he and Brian Wolfe will be ready to contribute to the big club at a moment’s notice.

Accardo’s spring numbers got badly skewed because of one horrific inning against the Phillies a month ago, and as recently as last week Gaston told me he’d thought Accardo had had a “great” spring, but Cito is more comfortable with guys he knows.  Also, he rightly said that there was no reason to break up what had been baseball’s best bullpen last season.

As for the rest of Anthopoulos’ announcements:  Joe Inglett has been optioned down, which is no surprise.  He did a great job for the Jays last year, and they know that he’ll be able to do it again if called upon, but he was the only one of the Bautista/McDonald/Inglett trio who had options left.  They can only hope that now that Inglett has been sent down, no one gets hurt this afternoon.

Michael Barrett will be the back-up catcher, because the Jays like his offensive potential.  He’s done a decent job defensively, as well – certainly better than I expected, but it’s the bat that’s the key, and it could be good enough to steal a lot of playing time from Rod Barajas until J.P. Arencibia is ready.

We had our next-to-last pre-season JaysTalk last night, here it is for your listening pleasure:

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Your final pre-season JaysTalk opportunity will come Friday night after the Jays-Marlins game.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!