Bluebird Bantering: Home Opener

It's Blue Jays Home Opener day.

Where I am, it looks like a great day for baseball, we have a high of 25 today, but I'm guessing that the dome will be closed tonight.

We have Marcus Stroman starting for the good guys, and Joe Kelly pitching for the Evil Empire 2.

Career, vs. the Blue Jays, Kelly is 1-1, with a 5.52 ERA in 5 starts. 29.1 innings, 25 hits, 3 home runs,16 walks and 25 strikeouts. Batters hit .236/.344/.368 against him.

Career, vs. the Red Sox, Stroman is 4-0 with a 1.26 ERA in 4 starts. 28.2 inning, 19 hits, 0 home runs, 6 walks, 24 strikeouts. Batters hit .192/.238/.212 against him.

Last I heard, Josh Donaldson was expected to play.

The team isn't saying who will throw out the first pitch. Maybe they will bring Alex in for it?

Let's have some links:

John Lott writing for Vice.com, tells us about Vladimir Guerrero Jr. A couple of interesting bits:

"He loves to work," Kim says. "He's got a very good work ethic. He has a smile on his face when he's doing it. He's a pleasure to watch."

Asked whether he has ever seen a 17-year-old with that much power, Kim pauses for a moment. "That's tough to say. He's definitely up there," he replies.

And

Guerrero was generally viewed as a corner outfielder when he signed, but the Jays have him playing third base. So far, they like what they see, despite skeptics in the scouting community who question his quickness and range.

If you haven't read Marcus Stroman's piece in The Players' Tribune,you really need to get on it. It's talks about how great Toronto is, how much work he had to do last summer and:

Our team is a lot like that, too. We're very aware of the outside noise that gets attached to our team — that it's the Red Sox and Yankees' division, and we just play in it. But the noise doesn't affect us. It motivates us. We're just going to do everything in our power to go out there and get a win every day. We're going to have fun with it. We're going to let our personality show. We're going to let our emotions show.

Ben Nicholson-Smith writes about our new dirt infield. Apparently, it is going to play faster than last year's turf. I'm really amazed that they finished it just a couple of days before the first game. There didn't seem to be much room for error in the timeline, but it looks like it's in place and ready to go..

:"It's definitely going to be a faster game," Gibbons said. "There's going to be more balls rolling through that didn't roll through last year, so that'll be an adjustment."

"That's what you'd expect, but until you're out there and you see games live, you're not exactly sure how it'll play," Shapiro said. "I'd imagine it'd play a little quicker."