The Long and Winding Road: Jays Finish a Long Road Trip to Open the Season.
That was a tremendously long road trip that started off a little shaky in Missouri (dropping two of three to the Cardinals, and the first game to the Royals) but the Jays rallied (ie remembered that the Royals are not that good) before moving the west coast for four against the Angels.
I really enjoyed the symmetry of the first two games— Mike Trout hits a homer on the first pitch he sees and then Bo Bichette cancels that homer with one of his own equals a Blue Jays win. Bo Bichette hits an early homer to put his team ahead and Mike Trout cancels it with one of his own equals an Angels win.
The game that was simultaneously the best as well as the worst was the 12-11 win on Sunday. The Jays were down 6-0, but stormed back with 10 unanswered runs. The Angels chip away thanks to a messy performance from the bullpen in the late innings, including a blown save from Jordan Romano. The game goes into extras.
And yes, a game that went into extras, in which a total of 23 runs were scored, only took 3 hours and 11 minutes. This probably will count as a “win” for the new rules, but it felt like 11 hours.
The bean counters and start heads want concrete numbers in this game, but so much of it is about perception. About feelings.
Feelings
Fun?
Vlad Guerrero Jr. hit a home run recently and he came back into the dugout and high fives all around. When Guerrero got to the end of the dugout, he hugged Tito LeBron, who then pantomimed putting a coat on him and Vlad shrugged his shoulders like he was adjusting the coat and flexed his muscles for the cameras at the far end of the dugout. It was clearly a reference to the homerun coat from last season.
The Blue Jays announced in the offseason that they were retiring the home run jacket. I know sometimes there were questions about the maturity level and there were talks that that was the reason both Teoscar and Gurriel had to go. However, all over the MLB app and all over their main page, they are talking about the various ways teams celebrate home runs and how it’s a beautiful thing. The Angels, for instance, inspired by the suggestion from Shohei Ohtani, have a samurai helmet. The Orioles have some sort of funnel thing that involves spitting water. There are cheese heads in Milwaukee there are all sorts of other things where teams are having fun, and celebrating home runs.
I just question Vlad's pantomime coat — how popular was the decision about the coat? Whose decision was it? Schneider? Shapiro? Other players? Is Vlad, the premiere homerun hitter on the team, staging a protest? And they just let him do it for obvious reasons?