Ranking the 5 best Opening Day performances in Blue Jays history

The Toronto Blue Jays are 22-22 in franchise history on Opening Day games that have featured plenty of memorable moments

Opening Day conjures up images of warm weather, sunny skies, and eternal optimism. For the Toronto Blue Jays, who are preparing to begin their 45th season on Thursday afternoon against the New York Yankees, that hope is shining brightly.

The Blue Jays are coming off their first postseason appearance in four seasons in 2020, behind a young core that boasts Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette, and Cavan Biggio. They have a certifiable ace leading their pitching staff in Hyun Jin Ryu, who will take the mound at Yankee Stadium on Opening Day for the second consecutive season. They added free agents George Springer and Marcus Semien in the offseason. For the blossoming Blue Jays, the promising future that awaited them has arrived.

This crop of Blue Jays has little connection with those who wore the uniform in the past; their longest-tenured player, pitcher Ryan Borucki, has only been with the club since 2018. But the Blue Jays do have a rich history in their previous 44 Opening Day games, from dramatic walk-off home runs to a reigning MVP making Major League history.

Here are the top-five Opening Day performances in franchise history.

5. Adam Lind, 2009

The Blue Jays had high hopes for two promising youngsters, Adam Lind and Travis Snider, entering the 2009 season, and for one day before a crowd of 48,000 at Rogers Centre, they lived up to that promise.

Both Lind and Snider were making their first career Opening Day starts when the Blue Jays hosted the Detroit Tigers on April 6, 2009. Two-time World Series-winning manager Cito Gaston was back in the dugout for his first full season as Blue Jays manager in 12 years after replacing John Gibbons midway through 2008. He put Lind, who had never played more than 89 games in three previous seasons in Toronto, fifth in the order behind Vernon Wells and at designated hitter. Opposing him and the Blue Jays lineup was Tigers starting pitcher Justin Verlander.

The Blue Jays got to Verlander early. In Lind’s first plate appearance, he singled to right field, driving in Alex Rios and Wells as part of a four-run outburst in the first inning. In the fourth inning, after Verlander had been lifted for relief pitcher Eddie Bonine, Lind hit a three-run home run to centre field that put the Blue Jays ahead 9-1. He added an RBI single in the eighth inning as the Blue Jays went on to win 12-5. Lind finished the game 4-5 with a franchise Opening Day-record six RBI.

Snider also homered off Verlander in the fourth inning and went 2-4. The two of them, so integral to the Blue Jays future, enjoyed every minute of it. “We were having a good time in the dugout every time one of us came in after a big hit, giving each other some love,” Snider said. “That’s how me and Lindy are, man, it’s a real good working relationship, a good friendship off the field and it should be exciting.”

In the eighth inning, the game was delayed for nine minutes and both clubs sent back to the dugout after fans started throwing baseballs onto the field. But not even that could ruin this day. Verlander was charged for eight earned runs, tying his career-high at the time, in 3.2 innings (his subsequent experience pitching at Rogers Centre has been slightly better).

Lind ended the 2009 season with 35 home runs, 114 RBI, and a .305 batting average, all career-highs. He was one of only three players that season to hit at least 35 homers, drive in at least 110 runs, and bat above .300, along with Albert Pujols of the Cardinals and the Cubs’ Derrek Lee. No Blue Jays player has matched those numbers in a season since.

The Blue Jays rewarded Lind with a four-year, $18 million contract in the offseason. He played for the Blue Jays until 2014, never hitting the heights he reached in 2009, before he was traded to Milwaukee for Marco Estrada.

4. Marcus Stroman, 2019

There were few positives for the Blue Jays to take from an Opening Day loss to Jordan Zimmermann and the Detroit Tigers in 2019, but the performance of starting pitcher Marcus Stroman was one of them.

Stroman, making his second career Opening Day start in front of 45,000 fans at Rogers Centre, went seven shutout innings against the Tigers, limiting Miguel Cabrera, Nick Castellanos, and the rest of the Detroit lineup to only two hits. He took a no-hitter into the sixth inning and left the game after throwing 94 pitches.

He had some assistance. Kevin Pillar made a leaping catch in centre field to rob Jordy Mercer of a hit in the third inning. But Stroman also helped his own cause, making a smooth play on a liner back to the mound by Jeimer Candelario to end the fourth. After striking out the side in the fifth inning, Stroman got two outs in the sixth before giving up a single to Castellanos, ending his no-hit bid.

Stroman finished the game with four walks and seven strikeouts. His outing, though, was overshadowed by Zimmermann’s domination of the Blue Jays lineup. Zimmermann would finish the 2019 season 1-13 with a 6.91 ERA, but on Opening Day against the Blue Jays, he was outstanding. He took a perfect game into the seventh inning, retiring the first 20 batters he faced before Teoscar Hernandez reached on an infield single with two outs.

The Tigers ended up winning 2-0 in extra innings thanks to a two-run home run by Christin Stewart off Daniel Hudson in the 10th, sending the Blue Jays to their eighth straight home opener loss in Charlie Montoyo’s first game as Blue Jays manager.

“He was outstanding. He had no room for error and he gave us a chance,” Montoyo said about his starter after the game. “That’s all you can ask for a pitcher. He was very good.”

Stroman kept it up for the next three months. By the All-Star break, he was eighth in the American League with a 3.18 ERA and earned his first All-Star Game selection. But the problems that plagued him on Opening Day persisted: the Blue Jays couldn’t hit. The club’s .232 average was tied for last in the AL, and Stroman was only 5-9. On July 28, with the Blue Jays 40-66 and 27 games out of first place, Stroman was traded to the New York Mets for Anthony Kay and Simeon Woods Richardson.

2. Doug Ault, 1977

Toronto Blue Jays baseball began on a snowy Thursday afternoon in April 1977. More than 44,000 fans filed into Exhibition Stadium, a converted football stadium with the centre-field bleacher seats more than 600 feet away from home plate. Among the dignitaries in attendance to see the expansion Blue Jays play the Chicago White Sox was Commissioner Bowie Kuhn; Anne Murray sang the National Anthem. The first pitch took place at 1:48 p.m. with temperatures approaching freezing. It didn’t take long for the Blue Jays to find their first folk hero.

The Blue Jays had come into existence the previous March when the American League voted to award an expansion franchise to a consortium led by Labatt Breweries for $7 million. The inaugural club wasn’t very good; they would lose more than 100 games each of their first three seasons. By the time they came to bat for the first time on Opening Day 1977, they were already trailing the White Sox 2-0. That’s when Doug Ault etched his name into franchise lore.

After the first two batters struck out, Ault, a right-handed first baseman with just nine games of big-league experience, hit a 1-1 slider from White Sox starter Ken Brett to left-centre for the first home run in Blue Jays history. In the third, with the Blue Jays trailing 4-2, Hector Torres reached with a lead-off single, and Ault came to the plate again. On a 2-1 slider from Brett, he hit the ball over the head of right-fielder Richie Zisk that just cleared the 330-sign in the corner for his second home run of the game.

“I hope nobody pinches me and wakes me up,” Ault said after the game, according to Larry Millson of the Globe and Mail. “After I hit those first two out, I couldn’t believe it was that easy.”

The Blue Jays won the game 9-5 to go 1-0 in franchise history. Ault finished 3-4 with four RBI. He played in Toronto until 1980, finishing his career with 17 home runs in 713 at-bats; Opening Day 1977 was his only multi-HR game.

His subsequent life, however, was one of tragedy. He tried his hand at coaching in the Blue Jays minor league system before working on an oil rig and as a used car salesman. In June 2004, his wife died, sending him into a deep depression. On December 22, 2004, he walked to his car in the driveway of his Florida home and took his own life. He was 54 years old.

1. George Bell, 1988

George Bell won the first American League Most Valuable Player Award in Blue Jays franchise history in 1987. So how did he follow it up in 1988? With the best Opening Day performance a Blue Jays player has ever had.

Bell had been named MVP following a career-high 47 home runs and 134 RBI. But the following spring, Manager Jimy Williams wanted Bell to switch from being a full-time outfielder to the club’s designated hitter. Bell balked at the idea, especially after the Blue Jays didn’t give him the money he was asking for. During a Spring Training game, Bell had refused to come out of the dugout to take his turn at-bat.

Bell and Williams weren’t on speaking terms as the Blue Jays prepared to take on the Kansas City Royals to begin the 1988 season. But on a warm, sunny Monday afternoon in Royals Stadium, he let his play do the talking. Bell took the first pitch he saw leading off the second inning over the left-field fence for a home run. In the fourth inning, he hit a 2-2 pitch from Royals starter Bret Saberhagen into the grass in centre for a two-run homer. He added a solo shot, also off Saberhagen, in the eighth, becoming the first player in MLB history with three home runs on Opening Day.

The Blue Jays won the game 5-3, with Saberhagen charged with three earned runs. The two-time Cy Young Award winner started 371 games in a career that spanned 16 years. Bell was the only player to ever hit three home runs off him in a game.

Bell’s relationship with Williams remained strained until the manager was fired 36 games into the 1989 season. Even 25 years later, the ordeal still bothered Bell. “I have nothing bad to say against Jimy. But sometimes when people touch your territory, you have to be a man,” he told the Toronto Sun upon his induction into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in 2013. “That’s what happened.”

His play on the field, moreover, didn’t match up to expectations. Bell hit just 21 home runs the rest of the season and saw a 23-homer decline from his MVP campaign. A year after leading the division by 3.5 games with a week left, only to lose their last seven, the Blue Jays never seriously contended in 1988. They trailed by as many as 9.5 games in September before winning nine of their last 10 games to finish two behind the Boston Red Sox.

Bell’s feat of three Opening Day home runs was later matched by Tuffy Rhodes in 1994, Dmitri Young in 2005, and Matt Davidson in 2018.