TORONTO — Just about everything went well for the Toronto Blue Jays during their season-opening series against the Athletics.
From starting pitcher dominance and standout bullpen performances to scrappy comebacks and a pair of walk-off hits, there’s not much more manager John Schneider could ask for.
The good vibes continued Sunday as the Blue Jays received strong contributions from secondary pieces on the roster en route to an 5-2 win over the Athletics to complete a three-game sweep.
George Springer is obviously among the stars on the club and got the crowd at Rogers Centre on their feet by homering on the first pitch he saw in the bottom half of the first inning. It was his first of the season and 64th leadoff homer of his career.
After that, though, it was the non-stars who grabbed the aux cord and controlled the decibel levels in the stadium.
Left-fielder Jesus Sanchez sent a 109.2-m.p.h. rocket over the centre-field fence in the third inning, while Kazuma Okamoto added his own solo shot in the third, going to the opposite-field with a 110.4-m.p.h. laser that travelled an expected 420 feet.
It was the first MLB homer for Okamoto and cemented a strong debut weekend for the Japanese third baseman. He tallied two walks, three runs and four hits over the first three games while playing strong defence.
Okamoto was one of the main offensive additions for the Blue Jays in the off-season and will be counted on to produce and help lengthen the club’s lineup this year. The same goes for Sanchez, whose left-handed bat contains some serious power.
Meanwhile, Blue Jays’ starter Eric Lauer benefited from that offence on Sunday. The left-hander dominated the A’s lineup, taking the baton from rotation mates Kevin Gausman and Dylan Cease.
Gausman remarked the other day that this version of the Blue Jays rotation contained more swing-and-miss than at any point during his five-year tenure with the club. He likely wasn’t including Lauer in his line of thinking as the left-hander typically isn’t a whiff machine.
However, Lauer’s performance on Sunday proved otherwise. He struck out the side to open the game and continued to go right after hitters, attacking the zone with strikes.
Lauer was cruising until the fifth inning when he surrendered a two-run homer to Max Muncy, but that was the extent of damage against him. He allowed just the two runs on three hits across 5.1 innings, walking one and striking out nine over 87 pitches.
His nine punchouts were the most in a big-league game for Lauer since September 2022. The left-hander was missing plenty of bats, generating an impressive 17 whiffs, with 12 of those coming from his four-seamer.
The strikeouts were a theme for the Blue Jays all series. Gausman collected 11 on Opening Day, Cease had 12 and, as a staff, the club struck out 50 A’s during the series. That number set a record as the most in the first three games of a season in MLB history and represents a new franchise mark for strikeouts in a three-game series.
