ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The early iterations of this Toronto Blue Jays group had a clearly defined identity — those dudes banged, as Joey Votto might put it, and scoring runs by the bushel was their typical pathway to victory. Then came 2023, with its focus on tightening up the defence to better leverage a deep pitching staff while also diversifying the offence and suddenly they were smothering opponents, only to find scoring themselves a struggle.
Augmenting one without detracting from the other was the goal, it didn’t work out that way, an identity crisis of sorts, at the plate at least, ensued and they were different, if not better. You remember the rest.
Seeking a different outcome this time around, the 2024 Blue Jays began the process of carving out a new identity as what manager John Scheider described as “a pretty complete team” Thursday evening, pounding the Tampa Bay Rays in an 8-2 opening-day victory.
The performance was a blueprint of what the Blue Jays believe they can do on a regular basis this season. Jose Berrios, having turned the page on the debale of his early hook in Game 2 of the post-season last fall, shook off a leadoff homer by Yandy Diaz to pin the game under his thumb over six strong innings. George Springer tied the game with a solo shot in the fourth inning while Cavan Biggio and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. both went deep during a five-run fifth that seized control of the contest. Bo Bichette’s two-run double in the seventh tacked on more runs while the bottom half of the lineup contributed a two-run single by Alejandro Kirk and an RBI single from Kevin Kiermaier.
Trevor Richards, Nate Pearson and Tim Mayza mopped up from there before a sellout crowd of 25,025 at Tropicana Field, the Blue Jays turning scribblings from the front office’s vision board into reality.
“We can pitch and we can catch the ball — you can say that pretty confidently. What I think this year’s version will be is that and then, a pretty damn good offensive team when you’re looking at the top of our lineup and then guys that are regularly playing, whether it’s (Daulton) Varsho or Kirky, that are better than probably what they showed last year,” said Schneider. “There are obviously things we need to get better at, whether it’s baserunning or situational things. But we don’t want it to be, OK, two years ago it was offence and then last year it was pitching, and now we’re going to go back to offence. It’s got to happen together. We were searching for that the entirety of last year. But I think it’s a pretty complete team right now.”
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All those elements were there springboarding into the new season, including a low-key strong defensive play by Biggio to end the fifth, when he stretched to snare an errant throw from Kirk and tagged out Jose Caballero trying to steal second to end the inning.
Biggio then ripped a solo shot with one out in the sixth to put the Blue Jays ahead 2-1, Guerrero followed with a monster 450-foot tank to dead centre that stretched the lead and they tacked on three more runs from there, Kirk’s bases-loaded single opening up breathing room.
The entire inning was demonstrative of what the Blue Jays want to do at the plate under new offensive co-ordinator Don Mattingly — search for impact at the top of the lineup, hit to the situation elsewhere.
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The Blue Jays hit three or more homers in a game only 19 times last season and had just 14 multi-homer innings. They checked both boxes in Game 1 this year.
“Getting three or four hits in an inning consistently is hard to do at this level,” said Schneider. “So the guys at the top, we’re wanting them to do damage, wanting them to get into good counts and to drive the ball. And then from that, guys throughout the lineup kind of complementing that, if you will. … A big part of the game today, not just with us, but everyone, you look at Tampa, big-time power, big-time damage, and that was totally different for them last year than what they’ve done, we need guys at the top of the order to drive the ball.”
