Jays Lose Opener, But Not Without a Fight

Are you depressed about the fact that the Jays lost the opener? Well, don’t be. Just imagine that they did as well as they did last night without their best offensive player, Aaron Hill (who is now on the 15-day D.L.), and that they’ll also be announcing the signing of their new Short Stop of the future in Toronto, Adeiny Hechevarria. Besides, although they lost the game last night – and we all really wanted them to win it – they still put on quite a show and everyone definitely got their money’s worth.

Notes from the Game:

• The new turf looked great. We’ll see what the players have to say about it, but it definitely looked better;
• Vernon Wells keeps mashing. I’m sick of th etalk about “unloading” his contract. It’s not going to happen, and I’m sorry but living with 1 bad contract and still being well under budget isn’t the end of the world. MLBTR has been getting on my nerves lately, posting about how the Jays could trade Wells to rid themselves of part of their contract. I’ll be posting something else about this subject, but it should be known that unless a team is willing to take on half of his salary per season, I fully believe the Jays will keep him and will pay him his salary.
• Both Brian Tallet and Jake Peavy did not have their A or B game, it was more of a C game. Any time Andruw Jones can hit 2 HRs off you at this stage of his career you know you’re having a bad day. Still, Tallet came out ahead, in part due to some stellar D through a couple of double plays. The Alex Gonzalez and John McDonald combination looked great defensively, didn’t it?
• Speaking of John McDonald, he came back down to earth offensively speaking, going 0 for 4. He, along with Travis Snider who went 0 for 5, slowed the team down, but it was Wells who left the most base runners on board with 4 guys left on base.
• John Buck crushed that HR in the 2nd off Peavy which should get his bat going a little more.
• Jason Frasor needs to be careful about blowing saves as he did by allowing a HR to Canadian Mark Teahen. Kevin Gregg has been so effective that such games can cost him his job, trade value, and position in the pen. I don’t expect it to be this quick, but it is already the 2nd game he’s blown – therefore he is mostly responsible for both Jays losses…..
• You would think that the Jays had the perfect scenario with Adam Lind at the plate in the 12th inning and 2 runners on, but he hacked away in the same fashion (ok, maybe a little less harshly than Ruiz who came out of his shoes twice) as they two outs before him (Snider, Ruiz).
• Cito Gaston should have coached a little more in the 11th, when he sent up 3 RHB against Matt Thornton who just dominated them. I thought that Jeremy Reed (the only LHB off the bench) could have given the Jays a better chance for a rally, or even Mike McCoy who hits RHP and LHP equally. As it was, Jays hitters looked horrible and took some nasty looking swings.
• Ozzie Guillen, on the other hand, coached his team well. He put Mark Kotsay in there to get the match up he wanted despite giving up his starting SS in the process and then had Omar Vizquel run for him once he got on base. Small ball folks, not Cito’s strong point by any means. If you ask me, a combination of coaching and Jason Frasor lost this game for the Jays, not Tallet or any other Jay.
• Attendance = 46,321 fans. About 3,000 short of capacity….not bad at all, we’ll see how the rest of the week holds up against historical numbers.
• Two points I’d like to make that may result from this game: less playing time for Travis Snider, who just isn’t coming around at all (maybe even a demotion to AAA if his under performance keeps up) and Kevin Gregg may just have won the closing role. The Jays may still move Jason Frasor, but it would be for much less than they hoped for. As for Merkin Valdez, well, at least he got to warm up even if he hasn’t thrown a pitch in 2010.

Well, we get to do it all over again tonight as Ricky Romero takes on Gavin Floyd.