Berríos will start for the Blue Jays on Opening Day, and Eflin will take the mound for the Rays as they host Toronto at 4:10 p.m. ET on March 28 at Tropicana Field. It will be the fourth Opening Day start for Berríos and the first for Eflin.
March 28th, I’m pumped, are you pumped?
I would say I’m more looking forward to it than pumped because the Jays don’t have much room for error.
Around the American League, I expect the Orioles, Twins, and Astros to win their divisions and the Yankees and Rangers to take wild card spots. So the Blue Birds will need to be better than all of the Rays, Mariners, Red Sox, and the 4 other central teams to make the wild card.
The Jays’ offseason moves were kind of underwhelming, although I think Turner might be the best clean up hitter we’ve had in a while - at least since Teoscar. Jays pitching is limping into the season on both ends (Gausman, Manoah; Romano, Swanson). We had 4 pitchers make at least 30 starts last year, and we probably won’t be as healthy this year. Springer, Bichette (no worries there :), Vladdy, Kirk, Varsho, and Jansen all need to have very good for them years at the plate for the Jays to make the wild card.
With how stacked the AL East is this year, there are no unimportant games in April. The Jays start with a tough schedule too. It’ll be really interesting to see how they look offensively - does the internal improvement that’s been preached and Don Mattingly as “offensive coordinator” work out? Sorry for being a Bobby Buzzkill for anyone I bummed out!