:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/60501009/GYI0061168459.0.0.jpg)
Two games into the season and things couldn't really have gone much better. The bats and the offense came out to play in both games and we saw some great pitching both days. How about that for a season debut for Drabek? His first career MLB win in 7 innings of 1 hit ball, that is not too shabby at all. Meanwhile our lineup continues to hit, and even if they aren't getting hits they are still being productive and getting walks. This team is creating a buzz and hopefully the crowd will be electric again today with the Jose Bautista bobblehead day.
As a side note, I know most people around here don't like McCown and Damien Cox (for good reason) but if you get a chance go listen to the PTS shows from Friday Opening Night, the interviews in the first hour with Morrow, Hill and Arencibia were all fantastic. Hill is a really great interview making jokes and giving good answers.
And in the good news column, Barry Davis reports that Brandon Morrow threw a bullpen session and felt no problems, scheduled to pitch in Dunedin in a game on Tuesday.
The Twins fans on the other hand can't really be happy with the results so far, their team has looked lackluster in their first two games and haven't been able to muster much against the Jays pitchers. So far only Jon Rauch and David Purcey but our bullpen has really looked good in the limited action we have needed them to pitch.
Today we have Tao's mancrush Brett Cecil taking the mound looking to continue to build on his good season last year where he won 15 games. As we remember Cecil was actually sent to Vegas to kick off the season last year and as such didn't quite get into a full year only going 28 starts. He threw 172 innings and lowered his BB/9 rate down to 2.8 (Almost a full BB per nine!), the only issue that I hope he improves upon this year is his strikeout rate as he did take a small step back last year with that. He is going to be taking on Nick Blackburn who is going into his 4th full year in the bigs, Blackburns 2008 and 2009 years were eerily similar to each other (I'm serious check out the numbers at baseball-reference), but last year he took a step back as his ERA and BB/9 rose and his K/9 fell.
In our lineup today the bad news is that Rajai Davis sits out his second consecutive day, with the day off on Monday that means he is going to have a full 3 days rest to get his ankle feeling right. Apparently this was another late scratch as he was in the lineup that was posted early and was changed. This signals to me that it likely we see him again on Tuesday as he pretty much ready to go now (otherwise he wouldn't be a late decision).
Courtesy of Gregor Chisholm here are the Jays lineups for today:
#BlueJays lineup vs Twins: Escobar SS, Rivera DH, Bautista RF, Lind 1B, Hill 2B, Encarnacion 3B, Snider LF, Arencibia C, McCoy CF.
For the twins today some of their bench players get into the game as Mauer gets the day off and Morneau will DH
Twins lineups courtesy of Mike Wilner
Span8, Nishioka4, Young7, Morneau0, Cuddyer3, Kubel9, Valencia5, Butera2, Tolbert6 - Blackburn vs. Cecil
Let's keep it Civil and GO JAYS GO!