Blue Jays pumped 12-2 by O’s in opening day nightmare

Mental and physical mistakes and Tyler O’Neill magic

The Blue Jays were never really competing in this no-contest season opener, allowing six opposition home runs in Game 1 for the first time in any prior year. They gave up runs in each of the first four innings. The home side then trailed 6-0 until a two-run Andres Gimenez homer in the bottom of that frame brought them back to a 6-2 deficit. It was the closest the Jays would get.

It was Jose Berrios chosen on the mound to open the season, ahead of fellow righthander Kevin Gausman, but the 30-year-old native of Puerto Rico surrendered three homers and nine hits in his five inning of work and was the loser of record in an eventual 12-2 loss at the hands of the visiting Orioles.

“You’ve got to pitch inside (part of the plate) to this team, but it’s just mistakes,” manager John Schneider describing the woes of his reliable starter, who in two home openers at Rogers Centre as a Blue Jay, has a 16.88 ERA with 10 earned runs in 5.1 innings. “I think it was just (a case of) missed pitches. That happens on opening day. You’re a little bit amped up. It just came down to execution. He didn’t really have his breaking ball until later in the outing.”

By then it was too late to keep his team in the contest. But it wasn’t just the physical miscues that did the Jays in as a team on this closed-dome afternoon, in front of a sold out, 40,734 mostly subdued fans.

In the second inning, with runners on second and third, nobody out, Cedric Mullins chopped a groundball to Vlad Guerrero Jr. that he fielded over his head on a high hop. Vlad could have glanced at third base, where Ryan Mountcastle had headed on contract. If he did, he would also have seen Tyler O’Neill breaking back to third. Someone had made a baserunning mistake. But with nobody out and the play in front of the former Gold Glover, Vlad had options, but did not make his decision wisely. If he had it to do over again, he might have seen an easy play with two runners on third base. But, instead, he sought out his pitcher who, himself, had made a rare mental mistake, as he was late leaving the mound and was not in time to take the throw, unable to outrace the speedy Mullins to the bag.

Guerrero compounded and then made another mistake, flipping the ball to Berrios, anyway, as he raced towards first base, always two steps behind Mullins. It was three mental gaffes on one play. That choice allowed a dead-to-rights O’Neill to correct course and head for the plate, scoring easily to make it 2-0. Could saving one run early in the game have changed the outcome? We will never know.

“It’s a weird play,” Schneider opined. “Nobody out and … people don’t know this, the ball was actually right in the lights. Right there, it’s early in the game, you’re trying to get an out. I thought it was good baserunning by O’Neill. It’s a tough play to read when it’s happening in real time. You credit weird baserunning and it was kind of a weird bounce.”

That was just the start of O’Neill’s ultimately dazzling Opening Day performance. Entering the game with home runs in each of his past five season openers, O’Neill In his second at-bat against Berrios, crushed a fastball over the right field wall to extend his Game 1 homer streak to an amazing six years.

“It’s crazy. Home, road, Canada, US. Tip your hat, man,” Schneider said about the Burnaby, BC native’s odd statistic. “He likes opening day. Tomorrow’s not opening day.”

What would have been further disconcerting for Jays management on this afternoon was the tepid nature of the reception accorded the team, returning as it was from a successful spring training to a sold-out stadium. All through the pre-game ceremonies, there seemed to be a little bit of missing opening day enthusiasm. The loudest moments included loud cheers for former centre fielder Kevin Kiermaier who performed the ceremonial first pitch, lukewarm applause for most players, except an enthusiastic greeting for Max Scherzer, and light sprinkles of booing as the Star Spangled Banner began. Even the volume of that booing was lower than expected.

The two main Jays highlights in an afternoon that was bereft of such moments, were a two-run blast by Gimenez, inserted into the cleanup spot behind the Big 3 of the batting order (who combined to go 0-for-10 with two walks) and the first major-league hit by right fielder Alan Roden, making his first MLB appearance. Roden bounced a single up the middle off Zach Eflin. He was the first Jays position player to make his MLB debut on Opening Day since 2B Devon Travis in 2015 at Yankee Stadium.

Roden, in a quiet post-game clubhouse, admitted his first hit was a thrill, but that he wasn’t aware of where the ball had ended up until he found it at his locker. He planned on giving it to his dad.

Personal Opening Day Highlights

On Thursday, it was my 53rd opening day in major-league baseball -- 26 as a team representative in Public Relations (1973-94; 2019-22) and 27 as a member of the media. Thinking back, all opening days are far from equal, but all become part of a spiritual moment, heading into yet another marathon of 162 games. It is in that spirit that I looked back and examined my Top 10 most memorable openers. They are listed here in chronological order.

1-April 6, 1973 at Wrigley Field. Cubs 3-Expos 2: My first ever opening day, was certainly memorable, if just for being the first. The matchup was Mike Torrez vs. Fergie Jenkins. The Cubs scored twice in the ninth against Mike Marshall, on a pair of bases-loaded walks to Ron Santo and Rick Monday. The winning run was scored by 10^th inning pinch-runner Tony LaRussa.

2-April 15, 1977 at Olympic Stadium. Phillies 7-Expos 2: Hall-of-Famer Steve Carlton beat Don Stanhouse. The first basehit ever at the Big O was Dave Cash, with a first inning infield single. He was promptly picked off first base by Lefty. What made this opener so memorable, on a personal basis, was the state of chaos in the stadium caused by continuing renovation and construction following the previous year’s Summer Olympics. The move to the new Stade was announced during spring training in Daytona Beach. Quickly, there were 57,592 fans that bought tickets to attend the stadium opener in a very short window. Amazing.

3-April 6, 1979 at Three Rivers Stadium. Expos 3 – Pirates 2 in 10 innings: It was mostly a theatre of the absurd that surrounded the opening series. The historical moment was that Three Mile Island at the nearby nuclear power station had just melted down on March 28 causing a certain level of panic. That incident had occurred just 12 days after the release of the disaster movie, the China Syndrome. In that light, as the Expos disembarked from the charter onto the tarmac, just as he ducked out of the plane into the fresh air, Bill “Spaceman” Lee reached in and pulled out a full, army-surplus gas mask that he pulled over his head and wore all the way to the hotel. That was typical of Bill Lee. The next day, under sunny skies, the Pirates cancelled the opener and played it the next day, open on the schedule. Was the postponement merely a precautionary move in case of atomic waste? Certainly memorable.

4-April 9, 1981 at Three Rivers Stadium. Expos 6 – Pirates 5: It was the debut as an everyday player of LF Tim Raines and people were curious about the level of hype. Raines responded, walking to lead off the game vs. Jim Bibby. Then on the first pitch he stole second. Catcher Steve Nicosia’s throw glanced off Raines’s helmet as he slid in and bounded into right centre field. He picked himself up and scored from second ahead of a throw by hall-of-famer Dave Parker.

5-April 3, 1984 at the Astrodome. Expos 4 – Astros 2: With huge media interest already in the Pete Rose chase for his various hit records, Expos opening day was made even more hectic by the presence in both clubhouses of U.S. Vice-President George H.W. Bush, a Houston resident, and his security people. Even the giant Astrodome rats that populated the tunnels from clubhouses to dugouts were impressed. Rose and the Jays continued on to Atlanta and Cincinnati, where Pete got married on the travel day so he could bring Carol on team charters.

6-April 26, 1995 at SkyDome. Jays 13 – A’s 1: This was my first opener as a Star columnist, so it stands out. Emerging from the devastating player strike of ’94, the Jays were not planning to play any replacement player games in Toronto, but after the strike was settled by Judge Sonia Sotomayor on the eve of the season and an extra three weeks of spring training was decided upon, the season then began in front of 50,246 fans. However, the next day was an announced crowd of a mere 31,070. The Star sports desk called me and insisted that I write about the SkyDome attendance crisis. My response was, “What are you talking about. I just came in from Montreal.”

7-April 1, 1997 at SkyDome. White Sox 6 – Jays 5 in 10 innings: The Jays led by one run into the ninth when Mike Timlin gave up a game-tying first-pitch homer to light-hitting Norberto Martin. It was then I learned the power of a clever lede and how it can sometimes backfire, as the reaction of good friend Mike Zeisberger of the Sun was to headline the Jays meltdown and loss with a simple, “One down, 161 to blow.” Joe Carter boycotted Mike for a week.

8-April 1, 2001 at Hiram Bithorn Stadium, San Juan. Jays 8 – Rangers 1: It was Buck Martinez first game as Jays manager and MLB scheduled a series in Puerto Rico. When Buck stuck his head into the dugout, pre-batting practice, local San Juan camera crews raced to be first in line, but Buck quietly and sheepishly said, “I don’t speak Spanish.” It was a huge event for the island to host regular-season games and was very memorable.

9-April 5, 2012 at Jacobs Field. Jays 7 – Indians 4 in 16 innings: On a cold and blustery day on the shores of Lake Erie, the Jays counted three in the ninth behind Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion to send the 2012 season opener to extra innings, then in the 16^th, catcher J.P. Arencibia slammed a 3-run blast and the bullpen held on. Most uncomfortable opener ever.

10-April 8, 2022 at Rogers Centre. Jays 10 – Rangers 8: The Rangers chased Berrios from the hill after just one out in the first, allowing four runs. Trailing 7-0 in the fourth, the Jays rallied to tie the game in the fifth on a 3-run homer by Teoscar Hernandez, then went ahead on a Lourdes Gurriel Jr. double. Thursday became Berrios’s second home start in a Jays uniform, allowing six runs in five innings. The difference is the Jays were unable to rally on this day.