Game Thread: Boston Red Sox (18-7) @ Toronto Blue Jays (9-17) – LIVE FROM THE DOME EDITION

Apr 21, 2013; Toronto, Ontario, CAN; Toronto Blue Jays shortstop Munenori Kawasaki (66) celebrates with a fan after scoring in the first inning against the New York Yankees at the Rogers Centre. Mandatory Credit: John E. Sokolowski-USA TODAY Sports

Welcome to the final game thread of April 2013! The Toronto Blue Jays open up a 3 game set with  the Boston Red Sox this evening at the Rogers Centre. Our very own Jeff Morten previewed the series for Jays Journal, so I won’t go too much into the match up at hand.I’m also not going to focus on the Blue Jays struggles so far in April.

There have been countless words written about what is wrong with the team, and what they need to do to fix it not only here on Jays Journal, but on seemingly every other sports site in existence.

Instead I want to focus on something Blue Jays fans have been forgetting about an awful lot lately. Baseball is fun. We watch this game because it’s fun, your day shouldn’t be ruined because the Blue Jays may lose again. Did April suck because the Blue Jays have gone 9-17 so far? No! (It sucked because the weather has been awful in Toronto so far, now there’s something to be sad about). When you’re watching along with tonight’s game, try to ignore the fact that the Jays are 9-17, ignore the fact that their odds at making the playoffs get longer every day, and just enjoy the fact that you’re getting to watch two teams that are exceptional at what they do, play a game against each other that is exceptionally fun to watch (plus Brandon Morrow and John Lester are pitching tonight and that’s awesome).

Line Ups

News & Notes

I think the apt way to describe this is NAILS.

Just to clear up any confusion, Rogers had purchased the TV properties of TheScore a few months ago, it finally gained control of those properties today after CRTC approval. The digital properties of TheScore (i.e. the website with all of the awesome blogs like Getting Blanked & DJF, and the killer phone app, and the Twitter handle @thescore) remain a seperate entity.

Look for TheScore TV channel to be rebranded as some sort of “Sportsnet” in the coming months, and presumably look for some Jays related content to show up on the network. There have been rumours of a live pre/post game show from TheScore’s studios just down from the Rogers Centre at 370 King Street.

Question Of The Day

After yours truly and the one and only Michael M. Beraskow (find him on Twitter at @donnieberaskow) gave varying opinions (but not really) on what the Blue Jays should do with John Gibbons, what do you guys think?

Game Updates

This is no ordinary Game Thread, I’ll be doing the Game Updates a little differently! Why you ask? Because it’s my birthday and I’m heading on over to the Dome to take in a little baseball to celebrate, but being the dedicated blogger that I am, I’ve decided to update LIVE from the Dome…cause I’m cool like that. I don’t know how I’m going to update yet, we’ll see how it goes along, I’ll also be over on the Twitter Machine tweeting my more inane observations that I don’t think are worthy of this fine post.

Almost game time!

Top of 1
The Dome is creepily quiet thus far.
Morrow strands two after a walk and infield single

Bottom 1
Blue Jays score 1 after a Davis single and steal and a Bautista double

Top 2
Morrow is dealing! A clean inning with a few Ks for good measure.

Bottom 2
Cletus gets stranded after his fellow bottom of the lineupers fail to get anything going

ALL-STAR BALLOTS

Top 3
Morrow strands 1, looking very comfortable on the mound. Pitching the way we all hoped at the start of the season

Bottom 3
A break goes the Jays way!

Top 4
A couple of solo shots put the BoSox on the board.

Bottom 4
I was getting/eating food…not really sure what happened, my bad!

Top 5
Morrow gives up another but is up to 7 Ks on the day.

Bottom 5
EDWIN

Top 6
Aaron Loup gives up his first career HR, the third solo shot of the night for Boston to make it 6-4 Blue Jays

Bottom 6
The Blue Jays go down quietly and Jacoby Elsbury remains unfazed by my heckling.

Top 7
Kawasaki gets a big ovation coming into the game at SS

#blamekawasaki

Ugh.

Bottom 7
EDWIN IS A GOD.

Top 8
Black Magic keeps the bad guys off the board. Guy is ageless.

Bottom 8
Blue Jays add an insurance run compliments of a Colby Rasmus RBI single. Janssen in to close.

Top 9
Good guys win!