Wednesday Bantering: More on Yesterday’s Game

We had our first look at the ‘new’ Rogers Centre. They had Hazel do a pub crawl and show us them. It looked like people were having fun. I wonder if they will stay as packed all season.

The field itself? I was worried there would be a lot of home runs. There were a lot of home runs, but it didn’t seem that any of the home runs from last night were a product of the closer fences. I think they would have all been hit out in the old setup, too.

I like the lower wall in center. And it paid off the first night, with Kevin Kiermaier making a great catch. And the high walls in both right and left can make for some fun on balls hit high off the wall (Kirk had one last night). It does look a little less sterile. A little less boring.

And the game was fun. Random thoughts:

• Zach Pop can throw more than 7 pitches without his arm falling off. I’m glad John gave it a shot. When your starter comes out in the fifth, you want the first guy out of the pen to get more than two outs.
• Manoah had a rough time of it. A very rough second inning. I’m not going to worry about him just yet. We’ve watched baseball long enough to know most guys have a bad month during the season.
• It was nice to see Brandon Bell get 3 hits. Again I’m not too worried about him. He missed some time during spring training with the flu or something and didn’t get the at-bats he would have liked.
• Also nice to see Alejandro Kirk have a good day with the bat. His home run was hit a 107.7 mph, and his ‘single’ off the wall was 98.7, There was a mix-up in signalling with Belt on the play. Belt saw a stop sign for someone else and thought it was for him (or that’s what Schneider (e before i Tom, I’m never going to remember that) said after the game).
• None of the guys sharing second base are running away with the job. Biggio is hitting .143/.280/.286 (and being robbed on strike calls way too much). Merrifield is at .241/.324/.276. And Espinal, playing almost exclusively against lefties, is hitting .111/.111/.111. Hopefully, one of them will start hitting and take the job.

Tonight’s lineup, against a lefty. Chapman gets the DH spot. Espinal plays third. Merrifield second. Jansen is back out there behind the plate.

And the roof will be open. Yay.

Here I thought Hazel would be calling in sick today.