Road Trip!!!

If this hot start of your Toronto Blue Jays seems familiar, that's because we did the same thing last year. At this time a year ago, we were 27-14 and in first place in the AL East after a sweep of the Chicago White Sox at home and left for a 9 road trip through Boston, Atlanta and Baltimore. We lost all 9 games. If you look back at the season, that road trip set the tone for the rest of the season, where we struggled our way down to 4th in a mess of disappointment after an amazing start.

Flash forward to this year, and we find ourselves at 24-17 and third in our lovely home of the AL East. And just like last year, we're off for a long road trip, 8 games through the AL and NL West, facing Seattle, Arizona and the LA Angels. Let's take a look to see just how important this trip is. (Spoiler: It's very important)

The 2009 Road Trip (of DOOM)

TOR@BOS - Loss - 1-2 - SP: Tallet - Wakefield

TOR@BOS - Loss - 3-8 - SP: Cecil - Penny

TOR@BOS - Loss - 1-5 - SP: Ray - Lester

TOR@ATL - Loss - 0-1 - SP: Halladay - Kawakami

TOR@ATL - Loss - 3-4 - SP: Janssen - Lowe

TOR@ATL - Loss - 2-10 - SP: Richmond - Jurrjens

TOR@BAL - Loss - 1-4 - SP: Tallet - Guthrie

TOR@BAL - Loss - 2-7 - SP: Romero - Berken

TOR@BAL - Loss - 10-12 - SP: Halladay - Hill

As we can see, stuff was not good, to put it mildly. The wheels just seemed to fall off and while some of it was to do with bad luck, more was to do with our sudden inability to drive in runs (23 runs on 81 hits (0.284) for the trip, 13 on 69 (0.188) if we minus that last game against Baltimore). Our rotation minus Halladay was full into the injury swing and our patch-work rotation of rookies and Tallet showed that they're rookies and Tallet. (Not so pretty 6.16 average team ERA, 5.63 minus the last Baltimore game and 5.85 starter ERA over the trip).

And so we go into this year.

The 2010 Road Trip (of HOPE) (Pitchers are probables based on how the rotations have gone so far)

TOR@SEA - SP: Cecil (LHP) - Fister (RHP)

TOR@SEA - SP: Romero (LHP) - Vargas (LHP)

TOR@ARZ - SP: Morrow (RHP) - Haren (RHP)

TOR@ARZ - SP: Eveland (LHP) - Jackson (RHP)

TOR@ARZ - SP: Marcum (RHP) - Buckner (RHP)

TOR@LAA - SP: Cecil (LHP) - Weaver Saunders (LHP)

TOR@LAA - SP: Romero (LHP) - Saunders Santana (RHP)

TOR@LAA - SP: Morrow (RHP) - Santana Pineiro (RHP)

Now we are talking about 2 last place teams and a team that's 2nd to last, but this is baseball and anything can happen and LA didn't look like a 2nd last place team when they swept us earlier this year. Taking nothing for granted, here are 9 points on the upcoming road trip, in honour of our previous trip of DOOM.

3 to keep up

1. Offense needs to keep blasting. As you all know, we're a team that can all hit for 20 HR and 80 RBIs or such, as per what Cito said. And while people are probably right when they say that such production is not sustainable (John Buck, Alex Gonzalez) I hope that production doesn't just evaporate from the line-up. And if Hill and Lind can find their heads and swings on this trip, that'd be super.

2. Pitching needs to keep humming and chucking. Cecil, Romero and Morrow are getting 2 starts each on this trip. While I think we can all be confident in Romero and Marcum, Cecil needs to find his "called-up" self after a shoot-out game with the Rangers and Morrow needs to stay with his "good Morrow" stuff. Eveland also needs to stop being scared of the strike zone and pitch for his job. Having some good defense behind him would also help.

3. Bullpen needs to keep shutting the other team down. After some shaky stuff in April, the bullpen has leveled off and right now is doing pretty well. Gregg has been far better than anyone predicted. Frasor has gotten way better and Lewis is doing well for his first time in the Bigs. Maybe the only weak links that need to pick it up are Roenicke and Janssen, although Janssen has looked better after a few rough outings.

3 to improve on

1. Scoring anything with bases loaded. As some optimists among us love to point out, we suck with the bases loaded. A lot. The trouble with having a power swinging team is that we're always trying to hit the ball hard instead of trying to just get the ball in the field for a single. Home runs are fun, grand slams are even more fun (I'm recalling last season for this), but there's a time and place.

2. Randy Ruiz and Lyle Overbay. Ah, our 1B "platoon". What can I say? Ruiz is trying way too hard to impress, when like above, he just needs simple hits to be productive. Chances are, this trip is his last chance to show he deserves a spot on the team, with Snider coming off the DL after the trip is over. And Lyle. Lyle, Lyle, Lyle. Do I have to talk about him? We all know about him right?

3. Ricky's "Wild Pitches". Romero is leading the leagues in wild pitches. Even though nearly all of them have been the fault of the backstop. Buck and Molina need to improve their dirt digging and get dirty blocking those pitches in the dirt that they're calling for.

3 to be wary of

1. Pitchers batting and running. We all remember Downs and his toe injury last year from having to run down to 1st base (although that wasn't on the road trip of DOOM). That needs to not happen this year, especially with our young starters. The Jays have said they've been running the pitchers through batting practice and such starting this previous home stand, so let's hope they taught enough. And if there was ever any batters Cito is right to use kid gloves on, it's his pitchers.

2. Getting Fisted and ...Vargas'd? While Seattle can't seem to hit their way out of a wet paperbag and we're not facing Felix or Cliff, we can't take these two lightly. Both have been very good for the M's and both have been keeping them in games very well despite the hitting woes.

3. Them Angels. Back when the Angels rolled into the Dome, they were a woeful 3-7, and we got swept quite convincingly, helping them right the ship (at least a bit). We also gave Saunders his first and only win of the season until last Friday against Oakland. They're still below .500 now, but they're still the same team as before more or less, and we need to be better. This series is most important to me, as a little bit of revenge never hurts.

In the end though, I'm very hopeful. Despite our team last year at this point being a bit better, we seem to have a lot falling our way most of the time. If we can finish the trip 5-3 or 6-2, I'll be very happy. A 4-4 is a minimum.

So rev up the bus (or rather plane), put on some coffee and let's get ready for the road trip (of HOPE). It could very well define the rest of our season.