TORONTO — Around 3:30 p.m. ET, only 12 hours after they’d arrived on Canadian soil from the longest road trip of their lives, Blue Jays pitchers and catchers began trickling out of the club’s dugout and onto Rogers Centre’s freshly-laid turf for pre-game stretch. There was a buzz about them. An anticipation. It was Opening Day in July.
Brad Hand, acquired in a trade with the Washington Nationals Thursday, introduced himself to new teammates. Alek Manoah, only eight starts into his major-league career, looked up at the clouds rolling overhead while the bass from a recently souped-up sound system reverberated around him. Danny Jansen, one of only five current Blue Jays to play more than sixty games in Toronto, caught long toss.
There was work to get done. A fresh playing surface meant a fresh round of fielding practice for the club’s pitchers, who worked on throwing comebackers to second base and covering first from a mound many of them have never competed on. All of Toronto’s infielders took an extended groundball session, as well, reacquainting themselves with big-league infield dirt. Outfielders shagged flyballs throughout batting practice, testing their sightlines, judging the open-roof carry, reading the flight of each ball into their gloves.
About a quarter after five, the stadium’s gates opened for the first time in 22 months, as fans in home whites, road greys, and alternate blues streamed down the aisles toward their seats, where they found masks and dark blue t-shirts bearing the date and the word “Home” beneath Toronto’s skyline. Meanwhile, the cardboard cut-outs that stood in for them at Buffalo’s Sahlen Field during 2020’s abbreviated season lined the first several rows of 500 level bleachers behind home plate. Out in centre field, the flight deck began filling up with excited patrons, cans in hand.
A little after 7 p.m. ET, Blue Jays players, coaches, and staff jogged onto the turf beneath them from an opening in the outfield wall, flanked by health care workers from Toronto General Hospital’s Medical Surgical Intensive Care Unit. Pyrotechnic smoke machines erupted and a video tribute featuring thankful fans was played as a booming “Let’s go, Blue Jays!” chant broke out amongst the 13,446 in attendance around the 100 and 200 levels.
Salutes to the crowd; anthems sung gracefully by Forte — Toronto Gay Men’s Chorus; first pitches thrown to the four Blue Jays all-stars by community members such as a TTC employee and a member of the East York Baseball Association; a gigantic Canadian flag unfurled across the outfield, as it always is on marquee days at Rogers Centre, held at its edges by 250 members of the Canadian Armed Forces.
An All-Star first pitch. #BlueJaysOnSN pic.twitter.com/bNjvxOMxLK
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) July 30, 2021
And then it was time to play ball. It’s what they all came out for, after all. What we’ve all been waiting 670 days to see. And the Blue Jays delivered in front of a lively, charged-up crowd for the first time in a long time, overcoming the Kansas City Royals 6-3. Not a bad way to come home.
All that anticipation, all that pre-game pageantry, all the zaniness of a chaotic trade deadline bled away as Ross Stripling reached back and delivered a first-pitch strike, 90.4-m.p.h. up and over the plate. And then another — a slider that Royals leadoff hitter Whit Merrifield swung through down-and-away. The crowd came alive, not that it had ever really died down. And if Stripling had landed the next one, he would’ve felt them through his cleats.
But baseball isn’t played to a script, so it took Stripling a few more pitches to get his first out in a three-up, three-down inning that ended with him walking back to the dugout as the place went nuts. And they really dialled it up when Vladimir Guerrero Jr. stepped to the plate in the bottom half, chants of “MVP! MVP!” ringing around the dome as everyone rose to their feet. A pitch later, the 22-year-old ripped a 107-m.p.h. liner into right to give the Blue Jays their first hit at Rogers Centre since Luke Maile’s ninth-inning single on the final day of the 2019 season.
MVP! MVP! MVP! #BlueJaysOnSN pic.twitter.com/FSyMYsFtyp
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) July 30, 2021
The first run since that day came an inning later, when Teoscar Hernandez saw a fastball in his inner-half happy zone and took it off the facing of the third deck. And, oh, did he pimp it. Flicked the bat away like a used chopstick. He’s felt the sensation of a no-doubter in this place before.
Teoscar with the first in Toronto! #BlueJaysOnSN pic.twitter.com/3tmm1cwDUT
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) July 30, 2021
That was a moment. Another was George Springer’s two-out double later in the inning, which cashed Randal Grichuk from second base. And an even bigger one came in the third as Bo Bichette, who’d stolen second a pitch earlier, shot around third base on a Lourdes Gurriel Jr. single to left and flew headfirst into home plate ahead of the tag. Maybe through home plate is more accurate.
At that instant, it felt like they couldn’t lose. Not on this night. But it wouldn’t be easy, as Toronto’s bats went cold through middle innings as the Royals picked away at their lead. A run crossed with two out in the fifth, and Salvador Perez got another in the sixth with a solo shot off Stripling’s final pitch of the game. A crowd that’s waited nearly two years to cheer for something — anything — still gave him an ovation as he left the mound.
And Stripling did what the Blue Jay ask of him — take two trips through the lineup, finish five. He got 16 outs with 76 pitches, mixing fastballs with sliders and curveballs, while sneaking in a few surprise changeups that earned him three of his 10 swinging strikes. It was the kind of clean, effective start that’s he’s made time and again this season as an under-appreciated pillar at the back-end of Toronto’s rotation.
And while the building’s energy waned over middle-innings, it came surging back in the seventh as Alejandro Kirk led off with a single, George Springer came up with his second double of the night, and Guerrero — back to his Juan Soto ways in the box, twirling his bat between pitches, tapping his foot and wagging his hips as he takes balls off the plate — walked to load the bases.
A run crossed quietly as Marcus Semien grounded into a double play. But then two crossed rather loudly as Bichette shot a line drive the opposite way that never came down, sneaking a two-run shot over the right field wall.
And of course it was Jordan Romano — Markham’s own — jogging out of the left field bullpen to close things out in the ninth. Sitting 97 and touching 100, Romano had to earn it as the Royals scratched across a run. But he had a defence behind him. Namely, Santiago Espinal, who bare-handed the final out of the game over his left shoulder, ending the night as emphatically as it began.
What a day. The pre-game pageantry; an emotional and long-awaited homecoming in a city slowly emerging from the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic; one of the splashiest MLB trade deadlines in recent memory; an overhauled bullpen; a transformational deal for a frontline starter; the departure of two top prospects, one of whom the club selected No. 5 overall only a year ago and signed to a franchise-record $7-million signing bonus; Hernandez’s no-doubter; Bichette doing a little bit of everything; Espinal’s ridiculous play.
Opening Day in July.
