The Jays won their home opener last night in their throwback powder blues behind some great pitching from Shaun Marcum, a timely assist from the pen, and some good hitting. Marcum was stellar, striking out 8 over his 7 innings and surrendering only 3 hits and 1 walk. His one blip occurred in the 7th inning. He got Youkilis to lead off the inning, but then walked Ortiz. Marcum came back to strike out Manny, but then Lowell blooped a single. Marcum had made J.D. Drew look foolish in his previous two at-bats, but not this time. Drew took a Marcum mistake and neatly deposited it above the high right field wall. This tied the score at 3, but not for long.

Jamie Campbell favorite David Eckstein led off the next inning and worked an 11-pitch at-bat into a leadoff walk (sprint), and Shannon Stewart, batting for Matt Stairs, followed up with a single. Alex Rios and Vernon Wells followed with terrible at-bats, both making first-pitch outs, but Frank Thomas followed up with a gapper to give the Jays the lead for good and preserve a well-deserved win for Marcum. Tallet and Accardo nailed down the win to knot the Jays' record at 2-2.

Today, the Jays take on the Sox again, as a couple of young pitchers face off. Clay Buchholz pitches for Boston while Jesse Litsch pitches for the Jays. Litsch kept his ERA very low last season (3.81) but his low strikeout rate makes some question whether he'll be able to keep that up, even with the Jays good infield defense. Litsch had some trouble with lefties last season but has added a 2-seamer to help him with the lefties. There's a great long interview with him in Behind the Dish , a great free weekly digi mag featuring excellent work by the incomparable Marc Hulet.

Anyway, on to the lineups:

Boston Red Sox

SS Julio Lugo
2B Dustin Pedroia
DH David Ortiz
LF Manny Ramirez
3B Mike Lowell
RF J.D. Drew
C Jason Varitek
1B Sean Casey
CF Coco Crisp

P Clay Buchholz

Toronto Blue Jays

SS David Eckstein
LF Matt Stairs
RF Alex Rios
CF Vernon Wells
DH Frank Thomas
1B Lyle Overbay
2B Aaron Hill
3B Marco Scutaro
C Gregg Zaun

P Jesse Litsch