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The Blue Jays have two games today. The Yankees are coming to Dunedin and a split squad of Jays are making the short trip to Clearwater to face the Phillies. The Yankees game is on radio. The Phillies game is on MLB TV if you still have it. Your subscription from last year should still work, even if you are cancelling with the stupidity this season.
Chase Anderson starts against the Phillies. They will want him to go two innings.
Nate Pearson starts against the Yankees. Yet another reason I wish they would show us the game. After Pearson they plan on using Julian Merryweather, Patrick Murphy, A.J. Cole, Yennsy Diaz, and Phillippe Aumont. Wouldn’t you love to see Merryweather?
The lineups in Dunedin, which, one would think, Rogers and the Blue Jays would be wanting to show off their new park on TV but nope:
In Clearwater, a beautiful park to watch a game:
Kaitlyn McGrath has a long interview with Mark Shipiro posted at the Athletic. It touches on the off-season and signing Ryu, expectations for the season (is .500 a goal?), the changes in Dunedin, the changes that will be happening around Rogers Centre, Dave Hudgens and the Astros scandal (his answers on Hudgens aren’t great), his contract, Tony Fernandez and retiring numbers, the Rays possibly playing in Montreal and more. I do like his answer on Montreal:
We certainly appreciate being considered along the way, and ultimately feel like it’s a net positive for baseball in Canada. And part of our role is to be supportive of anything that’s good for baseball in Canada. I’ve talked to Paul Beeston about it, gotten his thoughts and his opinion because I feel like he’s got a unique chair and a unique vantage point. I think he feels the same way — be interesting for you to ask him — but ultimately, probably if you were just to look at the world just through the Toronto Blue Jays’ business eyes, maybe a little worse for us, not to be the only team in Canada. Certainly, we lose that point of pride that we feel strongly about. But the net would be good for baseball in Canada and there are certainly some positives for us as well. And we are generally supportive, but not spending time on it.