Top Ten Blue Jays’ Home
Openers
The home opener is an exciting
part of the baseball season. It’s the first time the hometown fans get to see
this year’s edition of their favourite team. There have been 40 home openers in
the history of the Toronto Blue Jays and I thought it would be fun this year to
pick the ten most exciting games in home opener history. Now, how did I arrive
at my top ten out of 40 games to choose from? Well, first you eliminate the
loses (14 of them). Then you eliminate blowouts and rain-shortened contests
(1979) and then you’re left with 14 games. From there, you choose your
favourites. We’ll start with one that didn’t quite make the cut, but I had to
mention it as it was a victory against the Yankees. Here we go:
Honourable Mention: 1988
vs New York Yankees
In what was supposed to be the
final home opener in the history of Exhibition Stadium (strike issues with
workers would result in the SkyDome not being ready until June of 1989), the
Jays welcomed the Yankees to Toronto on Monday, April 11. This would be the
most wild home opener in team history.
It would start on a rather sour
note as the Yankees scored three runs in the top of the first off of Blue Jays
starter Mike Flanagan. But Toronto would storm back in the bottom half of the
inning. With one out, the Jays loaded the bases. Catcher Ernie Whitt’s two-run
single would get the Jays on the board. Kelly Gruber would tie the game with a
ground-rule double and Jesse Barfield’s RBI groundout scored Whitt to give the
Jays a 4-3 lead.
But the Jays weren’t done. After
Fred McGriff walked, Rick Leach doubled in two more and the score was 6-3 after
one inning.
After a scoreless second,
Toronto added to their lead in the third. A sac fly from Nelson Liriano scored
Barfield. A single by Lloyd Moseby scored McGriff and then Leach would score on
a wild pitch to make the score 9-3.
The Yankees would score two in
the fourth, one in the fifth and another in the sixth to make the score 9-7.
But in the bottom of the sixth, the Jays would score another three. Tony
Fernandez was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded to make it 10-7. George Bell
would follow with a two-run single making the score 12-7.
A lead-off home run in the
bottom of the seventh by Gruber made it 13-7, but the Yankees scored two of
their own in the top of the eight to pull within four at 13-9.
But the Jays put it away in the
bottom of the eighth by scoring four. An RBI single by Whitt was followed by a
three-run homer by Gruber and the score was 17-9. The Yankees went without a
tally in the ninth and the game ended with that same 17-9 score.
David Wells would pick up the
win in relief for Toronto after pitching four innings, allowing one run and
striking out three. Including the home run, Gruber had a total of four hits,
five RBIs and three runs scored. Leach also had four hits, Moseby and Bell had
three, and both Whitt and Barfield had two.
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