By Matt Antaya
After an endless winter, the ‘boys of summer’ are headed back to Toronto. The Major League Baseball season kicks off on March 31st, and though you like to think of yourself as a Blue Jays fan (still clinging hard to ’92 & ’93, baby), a brief chat with your stats-savvy boss has made it clear: you don’t know a damn thing about this year’s team. Well, fear not, we’re here to help you stay current on all things Jays with a weekly column full of enough stories, breakdowns, and buzzwords to convince your sports buddies that you’re pretty much on the team (or at least friends with the batboy).
There’s a well-practiced tradition when it comes to welcoming in any new sports season. We like to call it “setting aside last year’s regrets.” What happened, you ask? Didn’t last season start with Vegas picking the Jays to win it all in 2013? First of all, have you ever been to Vegas – ‘cause you don’t win there. Secondly, all the big trades, chesty talk, and flashy media hype couldn’t do anything in the face of all the injuries. The Jays were a great team with an irrational knack for getting hurt. Hopefully, this is a trend they can lay to rest in 2014.
Often criticized for his laid-back demeanour during last year’s spring training, manager John Gibbons arrived in Florida this year with a plan. Top priorities have been strength, endurance, and injury prevention. The players themselves trained hard over the winter, and we have the Instagram evidence to prove it. The energy surrounding the team this spring seems focused and poised to make a statement: “This ain’t last year.”
Looking ahead to the 162-game season, the fate of the Jays appears to rest squarely on the shoulders of its starting pitchers. The defense is solid. The offense is exceptional. But the team will win big or lose big based on their five-man starting rotation. The hurlers tasked with overcoming the weight of these expectations (not to mention a different kind of ‘wait’) are R.A. Dickey, Drew Hutchison, Mark Buehrle, Brandon Morrow, and dark horse Dustin McGowan. We’ll dig deeper into McGowan’s story and all these characters throughout the season, but for now, we wish them mounds of luck (hey-o!) and the ability to remain healthy longer than a seventh inning stretch. The Jays officially open the regular season this coming Monday with a four-game series in Tampa Bay.
Insider Stuff
Technically, the 2014 MLB season officially began March 22nd when the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Los Angeles Dodgers played a two-game series in Sydney, Australia. The Dodgers won both games. This marked the first time MLB has taken regular season games to Australia. In previous years, MLB has opened the season with games in Japan, Mexico, and Puerto Rico.
Buzzword of the Week: Makeup
This term is used to describe aspects of a player that can’t be measured with statistics and metrics. A player’s makeup refers more to personality, character, and attitude. Is he a good guy? Good teammate? Does he have healthy eating habits? Sleeping habits? It may seem overreaching, but with the amount of money teams have invested in player contracts, they like to quantify the commitment a player makes towards his craft and career. This doesn’t mean that if you work in an office you should start referring to yourself as having good makeup – that could get weird fast.
Okay, so what have you learned? Let’s avoid injury. Let’s hope our starting pitchers can get ’er done. And we’ll see you back, bright and early next week, for another concentrated look at the best damn (and only) ball club north of the border.
#LYNL | (Live Your Notable Life)
All images from: Toronto Blue Jays Facebook
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