Greetings from Rogers Centre in the most populated city in all of Canada (and 5th in North America). The Blue Jays of Toronto take on the Orioles of Baltimore in a divisional battle between two teams who find themselves with little to play for as the season nears its end. The Blue Jays recently had a late season push by winning ten straight that gave them a glimmer of hope for the AL Wild Card, but after losing four of the last six, those hopes have been killed and they find themselves in the same boat as the Orioles, who haven’t been close to the division lead since April. Both of these teams have no hope for this season, but they’re still fierce competitors and will unquestionably be fighting hard to get a win.
The Orioles, a team not known for their pitching, got an impressive outing from Chris Waters that resulted in their 2-0 shut-out victory over the Blue Jays. Waters was able to pitch an efficient complete game for his third win of the season. His counterpart was Shaun Marcum, who did not fare as well, as he was pulled in the 3rd inning with numbness in his pinky finger. This came after he gave up a RBI-double to Brian Roberts and walked the next batter. The guy who relieved him did not fare as well either, as he gave up a solo home run to Luke Scott to lead off the 4th inning. The bullpen calmed down after this and did not let up any more runs, but the worst offense in the league could not touch Waters and the Orioles finished off a game that never felt out of their control.
I wasn’t expecting much of anything to like with the only stadium outside of the United States (for those who don’t know and thought there were others.. the Montreal Expos.. a team that was up there for a good 30 years or so, became the Washington Nationals.. so the Blue Jays are all that remain). But, I was surprised a little bit. It wasn’t terrible. The stadium is a domed stadium that has a retractable roof, and the roof was off. This was nice. But it was a big spacious stadium that is also used for football, so the stadium quality wasn’t great.. as in, it didn’t look too nice. But there was the CN Tower (the world’s second largest free standing structure.. recently passed up by the partially built Burj Dubai in UAE.. if you haven’t heard of that look it up its effing nuts) visible from the stadium as it is literally right below it, which was cool. The fans.. they were just okay too. It’s hard to judge them though, because this was a weekday game and the Jays have absolutely no hope now, as their late push just got derailed the previous series versus the Red Sox. This might have deflated the sails of the Toronto faithful. I heard some chatter about the crowd.. and he was saying how this place would have been packed if they would’ve taken it to the Red Sox and still had a chance. As it was, they didn’t, so enthusiasm wasn’t as high. They didn’t have much of a reason to cheer either, being shut out. Because of these factors, it really is inconclusive, but nothing I saw would indicate that they were above average. They didn’t get crazy loud when they did get some scoring chances and it was just an overall sense of apathy. As for the charm.. it was definitely different seeing a game in Canada. It’s the first time I’ve ever heard a real response to the Canadian national anthem, as a lot of the Canucks were singing along when theirs was played.. to a much bigger degree than the people who sing along with the American national anthem at sporting events. There was also some accents out there in full bloom, but it wasn’t as prevalent as it was in Minnesota for the Twins. The stadium experience was also very commercial. The big board had to tell people to GET LOUD and it had stadium pans to get people to do dumb things. That’s not baseball. But, it wasn’t the worst of stadiums.. it was a bit below average, however. I’m going to give it a B- and 19th overall, ahead of the Giants but behind the Rangers. The fans still gave a semi-impressive showing despite the recent dashing of hope, but they didn’t show many signs that they were extraordinary.
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