Emotional Jays Opening Night as AL Pennant celebrated

Newest Blue Jays given chance to shine in 3-2 win over A’s

The Blue Jays Friday night Opening Ceremonies were well presented, but for some reason the sellout crowd of over 42,000 at Rogers Centre seemed remarkably subdued. Ovations and cheering came at all the right times, but the outbursts of emotion were shorter, more controlled, than might be expected coming off last year’s remarkable season that took this team to Game 7 of the World Series within one overly conservative base-running gaffe of a third championship in franchise history.

Maybe the fans’ opening night controlled emotions were like watching a Cecil B. DeMille Biblical epic, for the second or third time. You can appreciate the artistry, talent and production that went into it, but you already know how it ends and it always makes you sad.

The Jays went on to win Friday’s opener 3-2 on a walkoff single to centre in the bottom of the ninth by shortstop Andres Gimenez. He had all three runs-batted-in. An interesting, perhaps disturbing statistic is that in the past 17 innings, since Bo Bichette’s third inning homer in Game 7, the Jays have scored just a total of four runs, all of them driven in by Gimenez at the bottom of the order.

In fact, the bottom three in the Jays lineup, newcomer 3B Kaz Okamoto, 2B Ernie Clement and Gimenez combined to go 6-for-10 in the opener with three runs, three RBIs and a pair of walks. The Jays failed to homer in the opener and benefitted from a fair amount of good luck to score all of their runs.

With runners on second and third in the fifth, Gimenez slashed a line drive to left centre field. The two outfielders, Tyler Soderstrom in left and Denzel Clarke converged and deferred to one another as the ball bounced all the way to the fence. Clarke is the centre fielder and a superior defender, but he is still young and made a mistake. It gave the Jays a 2-1 lead.

Then in the ninth, with Okamoto on first base with his second hit of the night in his MLB debut, Clement bounced a high chopper over the third baseman, down the line and barely beat the relay for a double that set the stage for the second walkoff on opening day in club history.

For fans who may have been angst-ing during the celebratory ceremonies, about how to repeat, there was a moment of deja vu that they could have done without. In the ninth inning, two outs away from a 2-1 victory, closer Jeff Hoffman reenacted his Game 7 performance, allowing a solo shot to catcher Shea Langeliers that silenced the crowd, that was remembering Miguel f-ing Rojas.

There was good and bad for the closer. That was the “bad” for Hoffman, who remains one of the biggest fan concerns for a repeat in the uber-powerful AL East. The “good” was the fact that in his one inning of work, he recorded four strikeouts. One of the biggest fan reactions of the night, in fact, was the first ABS challenge in Rogers Centre history, coming off a head tap by Alejandro Kirk on a 2-2 pitch to Nick Kurtz leading off the inning. It was corrected to strike 3. After the homer, Hoffman struck out Soderstrom who swung and missed as the ball eluded Kirk for a wild pitch, which allowed for the unusual 4K inning.

Which brings us to the debut of another first-year, free agent Jay, righthanded reliever Tyler Rogers, with his funky sidearm delivery that is designed to produce soft contact and not high strikeout totals. He pitched a 1-2-3 eighth and made it look easy.

Schneider was getting to know his new setup guy in the spring but this stage, this atmosphere, this moment was different. After two outs, Rogers walked a batter and pitching coach Pete Walker popped out of the dugout and went out to the mound to see how the new guy was doing.

“When we signed him and I called him originally, we were having a little back and forth and I was trying to get to know him,” Schneider said with a smile. “He said, ‘Skip, if you talk to me too much it means I’m not doing my job. I want to be boring. I don’t want to talk to you for a couple of weeks at a time. I’m low maintenance.’

“Pete went out for a mound visit and he came back in and it was like, ‘You know how you can tell some guys are a little bit sped up and some guys aren’t.’ I said, ‘I’m guessing he wasn’t.’ Pete said, ‘Nope.’”

Rogers calmly ended the inning with a soft grounder headed towards right field that Clement glided over, hoovered up and delivered to Vlad. It was the second above average play behind Rogers in his first Jays inning, both by Clement. The Jays up the middle may have the best catcher through centre field group of defenders in the AL.

“I just tell myself, I’m glad I signed here, that’s for sure,” Rogers said in the quiet of a post-game clubhouse. Hopefully I can just help those guys do what they do best. Everybody know they’re good but hopefully they can show the world exactly how good they are. Hopefully I can get a few groundballs so they can go out there and do their thing.”

This became an interesting sidebar, because in his post-game comments, manager John Schneider recounted a conversation with Rogers from the spring. It turns out that the 35-year-old righthander’s current goal is chasing the MLB all-time “holds” record … which also seems to be the NFL goal of the New York Jets offensive line.

For clarification, a hold is awarded to any relief pitcher who enters in what would be a save situation and leaves the game with his team still holding the lead, unless it’s his runners that end up scoring to lose that lead. Friday was hold number 151 for Rogers.

The statistic has only been kept since 1999 and Tyler, whose twin brother Taylor is the Twins closer, recorded his first hold in 2020.

“The all-time holds leader is Tony Watson and I played with him,” Rogers explained. “So I kind of knew that he was that guy and the obviously I looked it up.

“After a while, I said, well this is kind of my niche. Then you kind of start doing it. That’s kind of a long-term goal. It’s not something I focus on day-to-day or anything like that.”

Career Holds Leaders (since records kept in 1999)

1-Tony Watson 246

2-Arthur Rhodes 231

3-Joe Smith 228

4-Tyler Clippard 226

5-Joaquin Benoit 211

T6-David Robertson 206

T6 Matt Thornton 206

8-Sergio Romo 204