TORONTO – Baseball at the renovated Rogers Centre looks better than it ever has, the new lower bowl tying into last year’s outfield redesign to complete the Toronto Blue Jays’ first non-cookie cutter home field. There are nooks and crannies, particularly in the outfield corners along with those along the walls, that give the place a chance to play really interesting, and the overall experience for fans should be better.
All that is nice, and in some ways long overdue, but the product on the field still trumps all, which made the Blue Jays’ return home after an unsteady 4-6 road trip to start the season a timely opportunity to do some normalizing as they christened the place. Behind a dominant Jose Berrios and timely hitting, particularly a two-run single by Davis Schneider in the third inning, they did just that, beating Luis Castillo and the Seattle Mariners 5-2 Monday night.
A two-out Alejandro Kirk RBI single in the second opened the scoring, Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s RBI double in the fourth extended the Blue Jays’ lead to 4-0 and Isiah Kiner-Falefa tacked on an RBI single in the eighth to pump some life into a crowd of 40,069 that was atypically subdued for a home opener.
Those hits also provided a lift for a strangely off-kilter offence that began the day second in the American League in walks at 45 despite sitting 14th in batting average at .193 and 12th in slugging at .327. Perhaps most curious is that their average exit velocity of 86.7 was tied for last in the majors with Pittsburgh and Oakland, neither the type of company a team with this lineup should be keeping.
Now, worth keeping in mind is that small sample sizes can get hella weird. Those series against the Tampa Bay Rays and Houston Astros, in particular, saw the Blue Jays offence struggle to produce, but the New York Yankees too helped to keep some of those numbers down.
“It’s a long season,” said Davis Schneider. “If you get complacent to where it’s the end of the world after one game, then you know bad things are going to happen the next day. We know we have the talent. It’s just a matter of being consistent with our work. It’s not going to be every game where we’re going to get 10 hits and score eight or so runs. But it’s making sure we’re putting in the work each day so that the next day it’s going to pay off.”
Facing Castillo usually isn’t a tonic to cure an ailing lineup, but the Blue Jays put up nine hits in five innings against the ace righty and he was fortunate to have only surrendered four runs.
Whether that leads to more consistent offence is another matter and before the game, general manager Ross Atkins preached faith in his lineup’s collective approach, arguing that the underlying processes in the batter’s box will eventually produce steadier results.
“We do see a lot of it translating,” he said. “I think it’s just too early to lean into some of the successes we’ve had – Davis Schneider and Ernie Clement and Justin Turner and Vladdy and George Springer – and then to talk about where there are opportunities for us to potentially be better. There are good things occurring that we are seeing translating, but it’s just in a 10-game stint. The importance of myself and John Schneider and Donny (Mattingly) and our players being patient and trusting in that is what will separate us. …
“You can see the plate discipline and team approach in a lot of cases where you may not see the same or the ideal outcome.”
Faith in that might be easier if not for last season, when the Blue Jays’ underlying numbers all season suggested an offensive turnaround that never arrived. Returning a lineup that’s largely the same, they’re banking on a return to form from a number of players in the lineup and greater contributions from some who joined late a year ago, Davis Schneider prime among them.
Hit at-bat in the third was the type of game-changing hit the Blue Jays so often lacked, capitalizing on a bases-loaded opportunity to push their early lead to 3-0, making Castillo pay rather than letting him wriggle out of a jam and find some momentum.
“That was probably the turning point, I think,” said John Schneider. “I thought he was going to throw another heater up and Schneid battled, great. Great read from Bo at second base, too, to really allow Carlos (Febles, the third-base coach) to send him. That’s a tough read with Julio (Rodriguez) who throws really well. But that at-bat swung momentum in our favour.”
Similarly impressive is that after falling behind 0-2, Schneider took a chase fastball up, an area he often refers to as his kryptonite, and then hung in on a slider that he lashed to centre, even as he was preparing for more high heat.
“His two-seam is one of the best pitches in baseball. It moves a lot. He throws 97. I was expecting the two-seam inside and I just stayed on that slider a little bit away,” he explained. “I kind of got lucky with it and just poked it out there. It wasn’t the best swing but good things happen when you put the ball in play.”
Berrios pulled it together with yet another brilliant outing to start the season, throwing 6.2 shutout innings while allowing four hits and a walk with six strikeouts. He was so good that when John Schneider came to get him after a two-out single by Ty France in the seventh inning and Berrios at 101 pitches, the manager was booed.
There’s some history there, of course, dating back to last October and Berrios’ infamous removal from Game 2 of the wild-card series loss to the Minnesota Twins, a seemingly enduring flashpoint with Schneider also getting a mixed reaction of boos and cheers during the pre-game introduction.
Back in the spring, Berrios said he and the club talked out that moment and turned the page, with him pouring himself into ensuring that no one would consider such a manoeuvre again. He pledged to pitch with an intensified aggression and refusal to worry about results and armed with a fastball sitting 95 and up a tick past 96, along with a slurve that drew nine whiffs on 18 swings Monday, he’s doing just that.
“It’s been working,” said Berrios. “The way I’ve been preparing myself day-by-day, before the outing, during the game. I was trying to be respectful but when I go out there I have to be a bad dawg, that’s what I’ve got in mind. Obviously, having in mind I still have to enjoy the game, I respect my teammates and the other guys, but I want to have that in mind, like I want to give my hundred per cent pitch by pitch.”
The best example of that came in the fifth, when Dominic Canzone followed France’s one-out single with another base hit to centre but Kevin Kiermaier came up firing and made a throw that easily beat the first baseman to third for an apparent out. But Isiah Kiner-Falefa, conscious of the new rule preventing fielders from blocking the bag, pulled back as he was applying the tag to ensure his feet were out of the way, allowing France to sneak in, leading to a successful Mariners challenge.
That left Berrios suddenly facing runners at second and third with one out, and he responded by striking out Josh Rojas before getting J.P. Crawford on a grounder to short.
“Big pick me up by the team right there,” said Kiner-Falefa. “If things don’t go right and we lose that game, it’s on me 100 per cent. So for them to step up and Berrios to make a pitch and Bo makes a play after that, that’s what teammates do.”
For a Blue Jays team still finding its footing, it all played as they continue getting accustomed to the new season, while now also getting accustomed to their renewed home, too.
