Blue Jays Series Preview - St. Louis Cardinals
The Cardinals are projected to be the best team the NL Central has to offer this year. Last year their lineup was top third in baseball but their pitching staff was middle of the pack. The starting staff doesn’t look scary on paper but the lineup has some pop, youth, and experience. I think this is going to be a good opening run for the Jays’ pitching staff. It’s not the Yankees with all their lineup has to offer but this isn’t the A’s, sorry not sorry.
Here are the things I will be looking for in the opening series:
Repeatable Run Production
Home runs are great but I want to see a walk followed by a single that makes runners on the corners. I want to see that followed with a sac fly. I would like to see base stealing they’ve been talking about so much this off-season. I’m looking for a run-manufacturing aggression where the Jays are creating runs and the Home Run becomes the gravy on the poutine. Repeatable run production leads to wins and the Jays need to push early while the Yankees are not at full strength.
Establishment of Patterns
In the AL East season preview, it was asked how each team was going to win or lose their games. I think the Jays can win high-scoring games and low-scoring games. I will be looking for strings of hits, even if they don’t score crooked numbers. I will be looking for good at-bats. I want to see pitch recognition, good takes, and controlled swings. The Jays’ looked really good in Spring Training and I want to see more of that to start the season.
Now that you’ve read the AL East Preview, here is the Jays’ Season Preview.
The Players Having Focused Fun
Now that the Home Run jacket has been retired, I want the team to get down to business but I want them to have fun in the process. This team thrives when they are having a good time. Optimism will abound early in the year for players and fans. I want to get a feel for this new-look team that doesn’t do the Home Run jacket and doesn’t have the Barrio at the end of the dugout. I won’t be looking for anything specific. I will be looking for the actions of a champion. Over the last six years, I’ve watched the Avalanche go from a hopeful playoff team until a switch flipped and they became a business-like monster who ran away with a Stanley Cup championship. I want to see that from the Blue Jays this year. I’ll know it when I see it but this change in attitude will be on the list of observations during the course of the year.
Baseball is back!
