Desmond Jennings went 1-4 with an RBI double and a walk in the Rays 7-2 victory over the Blue Jays.

Joe Maddon wants the Rays to stay aggressive on the bases this year and Desmond Jennings seems to be doing exactly that. Last night was no different, as Jennings went 1-for-4 with a walk and a double in which he slid in very hard to second base, cautiously avoiding the tag by switching which arm was outstretched.

Jennings was seeing the ball well throughout the first series of the year, collecting three walks along with four doubles in 18 plate appearances. The four doubles are already 13% of what he had for all of 2013.  Here’s to hoping he keeps it up and we see a breakout year for Desmond!

With the Rays 7-2 victory over the Blue Jays, they split the series 2-2, meaning the Blue Jays have yet to win a series against the Rays in their last 21 attempts.

For more on yesterday's game, you can check out Ian's outstanding recap here! The Rangers come to town this weekend for a three games series and Jake Odorizzi will take the mound tonight against Joe Saunders.

***

Marc Topkin thinks that more contract extensions could be on the way for the Rays, and he now lists Cobb, Myers, Escobar and Zobrist as the likely candidates. Taking it further, Robbie Knopf has heard rumblings that Escobar has a new contract looming...

#Rays indeed have had serious extension talks w/Escobar. Heard not close to deal at moment, but also still very possible it happens

— Marc Topkin (@TBTimes_Rays) April 4, 2014

***

Childrens Dream Fund announced that this year’s Rays on the Runway event will be held on Wednesday, June 25. Tickets go on sale April 15^th and start at $125.

ICYMI: Some of the DRaysBay staff gave their predictions for the Rays prospects in 2014. Take a look and chime in with your own predictions!

Congratulations are in order for Sean Rodriguez and wife, Giselle, as they welcomed a new Rays fan to the world!

Congratulations to @SeanJRodriguez1& Giselle, who delivered a large baby boy: 9 lb, 21-1/4". Vince Belnome optioned back to @DurhamBulls.

— Tampa Bay Rays (@RaysBaseball) April 4, 2014

Links:

- Jason Hanselman analyzed the the Chris Archer extension deal by comparing two parallel universes, one in which Archer gets this deal and another in which he's a super-two for arbitration.

- Jeff Sullivan analyzed (with .gifs) Mark Buerle's recent performance against the Rays.

- Daniel Murphy of the New York Mets responded to critics yesterday who were giving him a hard time about taking paternity leave and missing the first couple of games for the Mets.

- An anonymous Dodgers player thinks that the Australia trip may be the cause of injuries for Kershaw and Brian Wilson.

- Fun with three dimensional strikezones! Etan Green for FiveThirtyEight republished some research which takes a look at inconsistencies of umpires calling strikes in different situations.

- Evan Longoria is named the third baseman on the "Best Possible Baseball Team" according to Matthew Kory for Sports on Earth.

- ESPN's SweetSpot blog talks about what Longoria has done throughout the first series of the year.

- CarGo was removed from Wednesday’s game due to dizziness, but yesterday his manager said he may have swallowed his dip. Ew!

- Cubs catcher goes boom, falls down.

- Matt Adams of the Cardinals gets robbed while trying to catch a foul ball, pushes the fan who caught the ball, and the fan reacts by flipping off Adams.

- Rob Neyer gives his take on measuring team chemistry.

- Beyond the Box Score examines the value of a good record at home vs. beating inferior teams.

- Jim Caple of ESPN.com highlights the best promotions of 2014 around MLB.

- If you have a little one between the ages of eight and sixteen, sign them up for the chance to be a Junior Announcer for the Rays this season!

- From Will Vragovic of the Tampa Bay Times, a picture of Archer reacting to Escobar’s fantastic diving play in last night’s game.

The big day is finally here as the Blue Jays open their home campaign tonight against the New York Yankees. A great pitching matchup sees Dustin McGowan making his first start since 2011 against Masahiro Tanaka making his first start in the major leagues ever. The Yankees opened the season down in Houston and lost their first two games before getting their first post Mariano Rivera save and win last night. New York had a bit of a strange offseason adding big pieces in Brian McCann, Jacoby Ellsbury, Carlos Beltran and the aforementioned Tanaka, while losing an even bigger piece in Robinson Cano to the Mariners. The team now has a combination of all-star and replacement level players sharing the diamond, so the 2014 season should be an interesting one for them:

ESPN Depth Charts

Teams won't have a ton of information on the right-handed Tanaka due to his lack of appearances on this side of the Pacific, but they will at least have spring training video to go off of. The 25-year-old features four pitches often relying on his low-90's fastball, as well as a fantastic splitter and a great slider. His curveball is less often used, but still makes an appearance from time to time. Here's the nasty splitter in action:

via CBS Sports

As you can see in the video below, he has the ability to strike out batters with any of his three main pitches:

On the other side of the diamond, Dustin McGowan will make his triumphant return to the Roger's Centre mound after a roller coaster ride of emotions in the past decade. After being drafted in June of 2000, when yours truly was in kindergarten, McGowan became a top prospect and looked to have a bright future ahead of him. After some injuries the Blue Jays were nearly forced to expose him to waivers before the league granted him a valuable fourth option year. After that came a variety of different injuries that have resulted in him rarely toeing a major league mound until recently. Everyone knows the story now of how he entered spring training fighting for any sort of role on the major league team and ended up miraculously pitching his way into the home opener spot. It's quite the feel good story and McGowan is excited about the opportunity as outlined in a nice post by Brendan Kennedy at The Toronto Star.

If your memory isn't the best and you've forgotten what the 32-year-old throws, let me remind you. The righty features a four-seam fastball and sinker both in the low to mid 90's as well as a changeup and nasty slider. We're going to find out pretty soon if the curveball he had been working on in the spring is going to carry over to the regular season as well. His curveball grip was featured on Sportsnet.ca recently so at least he knows how to hold it:

Sportsnet.ca

Amazingly after so many different surgeries, McGowan has hardly lost any velocity although starting games will be a whole different animal. If you were to guess where one of McGowan's pitches was going, low glove side would be a good guess:

Brooks Baseball

If the dome wasn't going to be loud enough tonight, then this should really put it over the edge:

Roy Halladay to throw out the ceremonial first pitch at Friday's #bluejays home opener: http://t.co/fudgnHIZK6#yankees#jays

— Brendan Kennedy (@BKennedyStar) April 3, 2014

CAN's medallists to be celebrated at the @BlueJays home opener tonight, including these two @3_SDLpic.twitter.com/HXHKqsarXJ

— MoniKa Platek (@MonikaPlatek) April 4, 2014

Hopeful Lineup

1. Melky Cabrera LF
2. Colby Rasmus CF
3. Jose Bautista RF
4. Edwin Encarnacion 1B
5. Adam Lind DH
6. Brett Lawrie 3B
7. Dioner Navarro C
8. Maicer Iztruis 2B
9. Ryan Goins SS

Find The Link

Find the link between Dustin McGowan and the pitching coach of the Perth Heat.

Enjoy the game folks and if you're going to the dome don't get too drunk, beer isn't cheap.

Ray highlights some starting pitcher options that you should consider streaming on Saturday.

The Streamer Report provides you with daily startng pitcher streaming selections for owners who prefer to stream starting pitchers on a daily basis. This report identifies starting pitchers who are owned in less than 50% of ESPN leagues, and who either has a decent track record vs their opponent, has pitched well of late, or has a decent matchup.

Saturday's Streamers

Dillon Gee, NYM vs Reds

Gee is owned in 34.4% of ESPN leagues and is looking to improve upon his Opening Day start where he gave up 4 runs on 4 hits, 2 walks and 5 strikeouts in 6.2 innings. Gee has made just one start vs the Reds in his career with a 4.50 ERA.

Michael Pineda, NYY vs Blue Jays

Pineda had a surprisingly solid spring, so I am going to roll with him on Saturday on the road vs the Blue Jays. This is his first real start in two years, and I think he will have a successful return. He is owned in 26.2% of ESPN leagues at the moment.

Tyler Skaggs, LAA vs Astros

Like Pineda, Skaggs had a solid spring, and I think he can pitch well enough against an Astros team that will struggle to score runs this season. Skaggs is owned in less than 1% of ESPN leagues at the moment, and i think that could change after this start.

Weekly Streamer Performance

I will be providing a status of how my picks have performed over the course of the season, and below you can find how bad my picks fared this week. I am struggling out of the gate, but the same thing happened last year at this time and things turned around as the season went along.

The Yankees won a game last night and one member of Pinstripe Alley was victorious with the Daily Predictions. All that and a trip to the magical land of poutine coming up.

It might seem crazy what I'm about to say. Sunshine she's here...ahem, sorry about that. I'm just happy. I feel like a room without a roof after the Yankees won their game last night. Perhaps the Yankees are not doomed. Just a thought. Keep it up, Yankees!

4/3/14 Daily Predictions Answers

The results are in and we have a victor. After consulting with the Pinstripe Alley Analytic Department, currently three aardvarks (all named Aaron) and a Mark Teixeira bobble head figure, science has concluded that Michael Brown is our big winner with 4,000 points. He correctly answered 4 of the 8 questions. Blanky & GriffMan were close by guessing 3 questions right, although it does make me question whether or not points should be given for saying no one is going to hit a dinger. More kinks to work out, but we'll have a talk with the Aaron's and Bobble-Tex.

I'm thinking of changing up the questions every now and then. For now, these will stay until Monday. Now for some Fun Questions:

Favorite Bread for Toast?

Spiders: Nature's Household Helper or Terrifying 8-Legged Monsters?

Current song stuck in your head? (Another classic PSA question for the newbies)

The Yankees are back on the east coast to face the Toronto Blue Jays this weekend. Has anyone here ever been to the Rogers Centre? If so, any stories you'd like to share about it?

Thus far, these threads have seemingly been a lot of fun. A nice way to interact during the Yankee baseball-less afternoon. If you have any suggestions to improve upon the thread, make sure to let us know in the thread. Or E-Mail any Aaron, and they'll get right back to you. Have fun and sweep Toronto.

Ken Rosenthal kicked the ant hill that is the Jays writers and bloggers by telling us that Jays players considered deferring their own contracts to raise enough money to allow the team to sign Ervin Santana. Shi David has confirmed the story and Paul Beeston also confirmed it on  CBC Metro Morning.

Basically some of  the players were willing to 'pass around the hat' to give the team enough money to sign Santana (I'd imagine Dustin McGowan, Drew Hutchison and some of the others that were in the mix for the last couple of rotation spot weren't in on this idea).

This raises several issues:

• The good news is the players really really want to win. Anyone that tries to tell you that the Jays players only care about the money, show them this story. The players want the best for the team. And that is likely it for good news.
• Obviously Rogers has put a ceiling on how much the Jays can spend on payroll. It does remind me of the Ricciardi years, where ownership would allow the team money one season and then shut off the tap the next year. That sort of thing really screws up a team. In my opinion a team should be either 'all in' or be building. Being in the middle doesn't work. Especially in the AL East. If we aren't all in, we really shouldn't have traded all those prospects last year. The yoyo thing didn't work when Ricciardi was GM, and I don't see it working for Alex Anthopoulos either.
• No one seems to know whether the idea come from the players or from management. If it was the players? Great, shows the players care. If it was management? I can't imagine anything worse. If management is so desperate that it wants the players to finance the team? That's not good. It would suggest that the management of the Blue Jays and that of Rogers aren't exactly on the same page, that it isn't the happy relationship that they keep trying to tell us it is.
• It does underline that the players weren't exactly happy with the lack of moves this winter

Now, I doubt the Players Association would have gone along with this. They hate having players give back money that  the player and team agreed upon. They, amazingly enough, feel that once a contract is signed, it should be honored (what an old fashioned idea). It is really a bad precedent for the union. Once a team figures out it can claw back money from players, what's to stop them asking again next year or what's to stop other teams from using the line 'If you guys really cared about the team you'd help us with this free agent, the Blue Jays players did it'. The union wouldn't like that.

It sounds like the players money wasn't part of the offer that Alex made to Santana, that he eventually turned down to go to the Braves.

Anyway, it is, at very least, unsettling. It will get the 'cheap Rogers' people talking and it does make me a little more uncomfortable about the future. If Rogers is unhappy about how much the team is spending on payroll, we could be in for a selloff if the team isn't in the race this year, which would put us back where we were a couple of years ago, but of course, two years behind where we would have been. And it also suggests that Beeston's line about the Jays making the playoffs 'two or three times in the next five years' is long forgotten.

Let me get this out of the way: I am a big fan of public transportation and of the Toronto Transit Commission. I think that, at least from what I can see as a frequent customer, the TTC has undergone improvements under the leadership of new CEO Andy Byford. I also think that they get an awful lot of flack by customers for delays and other issues that are largely out of their control.

That being said, they really could've picked a better time than this weekend to schedule a large subway shutdown. Because of much needed signal upgrades to the 60-year-old Yonge line, the TTC chose several weekends during the year to partially shut down subway service in order to complete the work. Unfortunately for Torontonians and visitors, one of the weekends they chose was April 5-6, when the Blue Jays are set to play two games against the Yankees--who attract a bunch of out-of-town visitors--in games that should draw upwards of 30,000 fans (or am I too hopeful?), and the Maple Leafs are playing their final home game Saturday evening.

As you can see below, the downtown portion of the Yonge line will be shut down completely, meaning that here would be no subway service from Bloor station to St. Andrew Station. Most fans who go to the Rogers Centre would normally head there via Union Station, but of course, there will not be subway service there this weekend (I don't think this affects GO or VIA train/bus service).

Image pulled from ttc.ca

To give the TTC some credit, they did plan out some alternative ways to get to and from the dome after they were made aware that the Jays were playing the Yankees this weekend:

• Take the University line to St. Andrew and walk from there. Two extra train sets will be in service from 10 am - 7 pm.
• For the entire weekend, the TTC will operate 47 shuttle buses between Rosedale and St. Andrew stations, following the orange route above. However, from 10 am - 7 pm, the TTC will be operating 14 extra buses along this route to accomodate fans travelling to and from the stadium.
• Take the 504 King (east-west) or 510 Spadina (north-south) streetcars. The TTC have ordered five extra cars to run on 504 and four extra to run on 510. Note that construction is still unfinished on the 510 Spadina line, so fans would have to walk up to Spadina and King to board the streetcar.
• Another alternate is to take the 6 Bay bus and walk from Bay and get off at Bay and Front.

If the post-game crowd volume is large enough, we were informed that the TTC will be running a special Blue Jays express (and here I thought that was cancelled), route 4012 (which was probably numbered after Mark Lemongello and Roberto Alomar or something). The route will operate only if necessary, and starting at 4 pm. If they deem it necessary to run this alternate route, they will be pulling the 14 extra shuttle buses that was mentioned above and placing them on this route, which will pick fans up at St. Andrew subway station and bring them to Bay station on the Bloor-Danforth line and Rosedale station on the Yonge line.

Image courtesy of the TTC

I think the TTC really should've erased the "Please do not enforce fares" point before handing this out to us, but then again we're all honest people, right? Everyone knows that getting a free ride means you're stealing from all transit riders and taxpayers, right? And you know that I am both a rider and a taxpayer, right? And you probably don't want to steal from me, so don't be a dick, do pay for your ride.

Good luck with transportation, folks. Gates open at 11 am on both Saturday and Sunday, so get there early if you don't want to miss any pitches. Otherwise, stay cool and be patient.

Much thanks to the TTC's Brad Ross, executive director, corporate communications for the alternate routes suggestions.

The Yankees finally won a game, you guys. Maybe the season isn't over just yet. Tonight Masahiro Tanaka will make his much anticipated debut in America Canada against the Blue Jays. This should be fun.

The Yankees sent out their lineup for tonight and it's a little funky. Not sure how I feel about shaking up the lineup so much right out of the gate:

#Yankees lineup: Ellsbury 8, Gardner 7, Beltran DH, McCann 2, Teixeira 3, Johnson 5, Suzuki 9, Solarte 4, Anna 6, Tanaka 1.

— Jorge Castillo (@jorgeccastillo) April 4, 2014

Jacoby Ellsbury is back in the lineup because he's healthy and yesterday was just an early-season off-day. I like the look of an Ellsbury/Gardner top of the lineup. It sounds kinetic! Carlos Beltran will DH and Brian McCann is back in the lineup to bump Mark Teixeira back to the 5th spot.

Dat backend tho: Johnson, Ichiro, Solarte, and Anna (making his major league debut!) does not give me much confidence. Yes, Ichiro and Solarte were great last night, but still. We'll see how it goes. Last night was a surprise, so maybe Dean Anna will hit a home run or something. At least it gets the struggling Alfonso Soriano out of the lineup for a day.

If you haven't been keeping up with the injuries around the league, the Nationals recently lost their starting catcher Wilson Ramos to a broken hand. With the Yankees' depth at catcher it seemed possible that Washington could take a look at any of Francisco Cervelli, Austin Romine, and John Ryan Murphy. They were even scouting last night's game. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear it was for Cervelli and they have no interest in either Triple-A catchers, preferring to replace Ramos with an internal option for the time being. That's disappointing. They really need to trade one of them at some point this season, but I guess no one is really adamant about making a trade in the first week of the season.

Mark Teixeira left tonight's game against the Blue Jays in the second inning with a right hamstring injury. The injury occurred while he was chasing after a ball in foul territory. On the plus side, the injury is completely unrelated to his wrist.

The right hamstring is the same one Teixeira strained in the 2010 ALCS. Then, NYY said it would take 6-8 weeks, but that was a Grade 2.

— Bryan Hoch (@BryanHoch) April 5, 2014

There isn't any word yet on the severity of the strain or the expected time table, though. We'll keep you posted.

Tanaka picks up a victory in his MLB debut with a little offensive help from Jacoby Ellsbury, Yangervis Solarte, and friends.

Masahiro Tanaka went seven innings in his MLB debut Friday night against the Blue Jays at Rogers Centre, living up to the lofty expectations since signing a seven-year deal with the Yankees this offseason. He struck out eight batters and gave up six hits and three runs (two earned) in his outing. The other big news was that the Yankees lost Mark Teixeira to a hamstring strain in the second inning, forcing their already thin infield to spread themselves even thinner still.

The stars of the show on offense were undoubtedly Jacoby Ellsbury and Yangervis Solarte. Ellsbury reached base in all of his first four trips to the plate with a double, single, double, and a walk. He stole two bases and made an impressive diving play in center field. Solarte continues to make the decision to put him in the lineup a no-brainer with two hits and three runs driven in tonight. The Yankees won an important challenge of a play at first where Ichiro Suzuki was originally called out with Brian Roberts on base. Joe Girardi rightfully challenged the call that was overturned before Solarte smacked a two-run double to put the Yankees back on top.

Ichiro Suzuki also made the most of his second straight start with three hits and two runs. Every Yankee had at least one hit except Roberts who came in the game for Teixeira. Kelly Johnson moved from third to first and Solarte moved from second to third. That could be the lineup we see a lot going forward if Teixeira needs to miss any considerable amount of time.

Tanaka was greeted by a Melky Cabrera home run on his third pitch of the game, but the Japanese right-hander settled in from there by closing out the game with four straight clean innings. Girardi said that he expected Tanaka to pitch around 100 pitches and he came in just shy of that mark. Give the 25-year-old credit for not letting things spiral out of control after the first and second innings didn't go exactly as planned, including a rare error by Teixeira in the field that led to an unearned run.

Matt Thornton and Dellin Betances combined to pitch the eighth inning before David Robertson was called upon in a non-save situation to clean up an erratic Betances' mess in the ninth. Dellin just didn't have control over his pitches tonight, plain and simple. Robertson got Dioner Navarro to pop up before getting Brett Lawrie to hit into a fielder's choice and closed it out with a Maicer Izturis fly out to Gardner on a sliding catch. This team was brutal to watch for most of last season, and the first two games of this year were painfully reminiscent of that, but they were a whole lot of fun to watch tonight.

If you want to find a Yankee who did not have a banner evening, look no further than third base coach Rob Thomson. Thomson has drawn ire in the past for questionable sends and holds, and tonight he was in pretty rare form again. Ichiro Suzuki singled in the fifth inning and a throw over by the pitcher go away from Edwin Encarnacion at first base. Ichiro rightfully ran to second base before Thomson decided to wave him on to third. Ichiro was, as you may have guessed, very out. It did not end there. Dean Anna picked up his first big league hit on a single to left in the ninth inning with Solarte on third base. The hit was shallow and Melky Cabrera has one of the better arms in the outfield, as Thomson should know. He sent Solarte to be easily thrown out at home. It did not matter in this case with the Yankees leading 7-3, but these mistakes in a closer game could be a dagger. Get it together, coach.

Rob Thomson was sending Ichiro all the way. He was thrown out by a few feet.

— Jorge Castillo (@jorgeccastillo) April 5, 2014

No tests have been performed on Teixeira to this point, and Joe Girardi says any that are deemed necessary won't take place until Monday. That almost certainly means that Johnson will be playing first for the remainder of the series. Can't complain about that too much, as Solarte has more than earned more playing time.

The Yankees get another exciting debut tomorrow when Michael Pineda makes his highly anticipated return to MLB at 1:07 pm. Hopefully his goes as well as Tanaka's did tonight.

Box score

Yankees 7 Blue Jays 3

Dustin McGowan's first start didn't go the way we would have liked. He seemed a little over amped or something. Maybe he got into Brett Lawrie's Red Bull. Or maybe he was just thrilled to be starting the home opener. He went 2.2, allowed 8 hits, 4 earned, 1 walks with 3 strikeouts. He did have some bad luck, there were some soft hits that just missed fielders. But then he had some hard hit balls find gloves. I'm sure his next start will go better.

Masahiro Tanaka was pretty much as good as advertised. He went 7 innings allowing 6 hits, 3 runs, 2 earned, with no walks and 8 strikeouts. Melky Cabrera hit a home run off him to lead off the first inning. And we scored 2 more in the second, on a Jonathan Diaz bases loaded single, bringing home Dioner Navarro and Brett Lawrie, who had singles and moved to 2nd and 3rd on a Mark Teixiera error. It gave us a short lived lead, but the Yankees scored 2 in the third to jump ahead again and then added another run in each of the 4th, 8th and 9th.

With Dustin coming out of the game early, we used a good part of our bullpen. Aaron Loup gave up a run in his 1.1 innings. Todd Redmond went 1.2 scoreless. Brett Cecil had a scoreless 1.1. Steve Delabar gave up a run in his inning and Jeremy Jeffress gave up a run in the 9th, off 3 hits (but no walks, a small step up).

Proving we aren't the only team that gets guys injured, Mark Teixiera game out of the game in the second with a hamstring strain.

We only had 6 hits in total, 2 for Edwin Encarnacion, and one each for Navarro, Lawrie, Diaz and Cabrera (the homer).

Jay of the Day is Diaz (.103 WPA). He's quickly becoming a favorite.

Suckage goes to McGowan (- .299), Adam Lind (-.164) and Colby Rasmus (-.102).

It was great to see Roy Halladay throw out the first pitch (as much as it would be better if he was in the rotation.

We get another shot at the Yankees tomorrow at 1:00 Eastern. R.A. Dickey gets his second start (it has to be better than his first, right?) and Michael Pineda makes his first start as a Yankee, after sitting out the last two seasons with labrum surgery.

We tallied up 1779 comments in our two gamethreads. Pikachu picks up his 3rd win of the season, with an impressive 160 comments.

Well, that didn't take long, the Blue Jays have called up Chad Jenkins from the Buffalo Bisons, and DFA Jeremy Jeffress.

Jenkins looked pretty impressive during spring training. He pitched 6.2 alling 5 hits, 3 earned, with no walks and 5 strikeouts. Last year he had a 2.70 ERA in 33 innings, 3 starts and 7 relief appearances. 31 hits, 6 walks and 15 strikeouts.

Jeffress made 2 relief appearances for the Jays, in our first 5 games, allowing 5 hits, 3 walks with 2 strikeouts in 2.1 innings and an 11.57 ERA. He had a tough time in spring training, walking 9 and giving up 12 hits in 12 innings, with 8 strikeouts. Jeffress has a great arm and had a terrific September, after being called up last year, pitching 9.1 scoreless innings, allowing 7 hits, 3 walks with 11 strikeouts.

I hope he clears waivers, I hate giving up on someone that can throw that hard, but maybe he's had enough chances here.

Personally I would have rather seen them call up John Stilson but I'm happy for Jenkins.

With Tanaka in the fold, the Yankees' rotation has a chance to be better than most observers expect in 2014.

With baseball season underway, the Yankees' rotation faces a number of question marks in the months ahead, the most notable of which is how smoothly Masahiro Tanaka is able to transition from baseball in Japan to the Major Leagues.

After all, the Yankees didn't commit $155 million to Tanaka over the next seven seasons without expecting the right-hander to help hold down their rotation well into the future.

Judging by his performance against the Blue Jays in his debut on Friday night, then, the Yankees' investment in Tanaka might just give them a deeper and steadier rotation than many expected in the 2014 season. The 25-year-old's final line— seven innings, six hits, eight strikeouts and two earned runs — doesn't adequately portray how in control he was against the Jays on Friday, especially in the last few innings of his outing.

Tanaka battled through a bumpy start, giving up a home run to Melky Cabrera -- the first MLB batter he faced -- in the first inning and a two-run single to Jonathan Diaz in the second, before settling down and showing just why he was such an attractive commodity to MLB teams this winter. In the final four innings of his outing, Tanaka retired 11 of the last 12 batters he faced, allowing just an infield single to Edwin Encarnacion. Even more encouraging for the Yankees, Tanaka struck out eight Jays batters and walked none, showcasing the type of sharp control that led to his dominance in Japan.

In addition, Tanaka showed the capability to get strikeouts on multiple pitches, inducing whiffs not just with his well-publicized splitter, but also a fastball that showed good movement and consistently clocked in at 93 mph. Tanaka's combination of strong control, whiff- inducing stuff, and the ability to garner groundballs (he generated eight groundball outs) will be more than enough for him to succeed in the majors.

Optimism surrounding Tanaka after his debut should filter down to the rest of the Yankees' rotation as well. Sure, CC Sabathia struggled in his Opening Day start and, at the moment, has very few proponents after a career-worst campaign in 2013. But beyond Sabathia, the club's rotation is looking more and more like a unit the Yankees can depend on this year.

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Hiroki Kuroda has been one of MLB's most consistent starters since he came over from Japan back in 2008, proving he can excel in the AL East over the last two seasons. The 39-year-old looked like his normal self in his first start against the Astros despite taking the loss.

Add in Tanaka and Ivan Nova, who posted a 2.78 ERA in 13 starts after the All-Star Break in 2013, and the Yankees have at least three starters who should pitch at above-average levels this year. Whatever the previously injured but highly touted Michael Pineda adds from the fifth spot in the rotation can only be considered gravy from a Yankees perspective. The 25-year-old hasn't pitched in the majors since 2011, but enjoyed a strong spring that saw his velocity return to its former levels.

The Yankees won't be a perfect team by any stretch in 2014. Their infield has a legitimate chance to be the franchise's worst since before Derek Jeter first donned pinstripes, Sabathia might really be washed up, and the team's injury problems could crop up again in an impactful way.

Yet with Tanaka in the fold, the Yankees' rotation should keep them in games, and if the lineup can stay healthy, the club could contend for a postseason berth in a crowded AL playoff picture. The Yankees aren't the juggernaut they used to be, but that doesn't mean there are no reasons for optimism in the Bronx.

After last night's game Jeremy Jeffress was designated for assignment and it was reported that Chad Jenkins would be coming to Toronto to take his place...but apparently that isn't the case. Right-handed pitcher Marcus Walden has been added to the 40-man and will be the reliever that fills the void left by the departing Jeffress. Walden will be available to pitch in the game this afternoon if stuff really starts to go downhill.

#bluejays announce they've purchased contract of RHP Marcus Walden as the corresponding roster move for Jeffress. So it's him not Jenkins.

— Brendan Kennedy (@BKennedyStar) April 5, 2014

Before we get to 'why', we'll answer the 'who' part of the equation. Marcus Walden is a 25-year-old right handed pitcher who was drafted in the ninth round of the 2007 draft and has been a dependable piece of the Blue Jays farm system. In 2013 he started 26 games in New Hampshire and ended up with an ERA of 3.71 with peripherals that don't exactly excite you (4.9 K/9). He has appeared in one inning in Buffalo so far this year allowing a hit, but no runs.

Now to the 'why', which isn't exactly clear at the moment. Walden has been an okay piece of the Blue Jays organization, but not exactly someone who was fast tracked through the system due to any sort of dominance. He's obviously not on the the 40-man so that brings up an issue that wouldn't need to be addressed if Chad Jenkins was actually the player being called up. I can't think of too many situations where this would make sense, since there's a few guys in Buffalo ahead of Walden that you would think would get the call before him like Neil Wagner or the aforementioned Jenkins.

Well now we have an explanation on why it had to be a player who wasn't on the 40-man roster:

Because Jenkins is on #Bluejays 40-man, he has to stay on option for 10 reg. season days. Not eligible to be recalled until Apr. 10. #Jays

— Mike Wilner (@Wilnerness590) April 5, 2014

Everyone post your best guess at why this move happened and we'll roll with the most plausible one. My theory is that Walden has inside information that the Blue Jays have to pay for their own bus rides by passing a hat around the bus and the team is afraid this information will be leaked out.

Minor Leaguer offers his own random guess:

Maybe the Jays are ready to pull the plug on Dustin McGowan and want Marcus Walden to start. Shrug.

— Minor Leaguer (@Minor_Leaguer) April 5, 2014

Likely should had kept Jeffress until the 10th.

Michael Pineda was good. The offense was not.

Two years after being acquired, Michael Pineda finally took the mound in a Yankees' uniform in a regular season game. He did not disappoint. After two tough early innings, Pineda shut down the Blue Jays over the next four, allowing just one run in his six innings. The lineup and the bullpen could not do anything for Pineda, though. The offense managed no runs and the bullpen made a comeback even more difficult and in the end the Blue Jays won 4-0.

The Blue Jays struck first with a run in the bottom of the second. Adam Lind led off the inning with a double. After a failed bunt attempt by Brett Lawrie, Lind scored when Josh Thole dropped a single into left field. Despite another hit by Ryan Goins, Pineda escaped the inning without allowing any more runs.

The Yankees could have and should have tied the game in the top of the third. Francisco Cervelli led off with a double. After Yangervis Solarte and Dean Anna both struck out, Jacoby Ellsbury came to the plate. Ellsbury singled to center and Cervelli was sent home. Blue Jays' catcher Josh Thole caught the throw home and tagged Cervelli out. However it looked as if Thole was blocking the plate and Cervelli might have gotten his foot in before the tag anyway. Joe Girardi asked the umpires to review the play and they did. The call got upheld and the score stayed at 1-0.

Both offenses then stalled for a while. After the first two innings, Pineda was excellent. The problem was the Yankees couldn't get anything going against R.A. Dickey. They had a decent chance in the top of the sixth, when they had first and second with nobody out. But a Carlos Beltran double play and a Brian McCann ground out ended that.

Pineda's day finished after the bottom of the sixth. He went six innings, allowing one run on five hits with five strikeouts. Pineda's first game back could not have gone a whole lot better.

Vidal Nuno came in to start the seventh, but after walking Adam Lind, he was replaced by David Phelps. Phelps got the three outs relatively easily, keeping the score at 1-0.

In the eighth inning, Ellsbury singled and Jeter walked, again putting two on with no one out. But once again, the Yankees couldn't do anything in that situation. Beltran struck out, McCann grounded out and Alfonso Soriano chased a pitch out of the zone for strike three.

Phelps came back out for the eighth inning. After getting Jonathan Diaz to ground out, Phelps allowed a home run to Melky Cabrera. That doubled the Blue Jays' lead. Phelps then allowed a double to Colby Rasmus and another home run to Jose Bautista. The score was now at 4-0. Phelps struck out Edwin Encarnacion and Lind, but the damage was done.

With two outs in the ninth Solarte walked and Brian Roberts singled to keep the game alive. Ellsbury was having a good day at the plate, but he couldn't add to it and struck out to end the game. The Blue Jays came away with a 4-0 win.

The Yankees will finish up their series in Toronto tomorrow at 1:05 eastern. CC Sabathia will get the start for the Yankees while Drew Hutchison will go for the Blue Jays.

Box score.

Yankees 0 Blue Jays 4

I loved that game.

R.A. Dickey was great. If he could pitch like that every start....oh well, just enjoy this, it was great. 6.2 shutout innings, 5 hits, 1 walk and 6 strikeouts. Loved it. He did get some help by some good. He started his own beautiful double play in the 6th, two on, no outs and gets a bouncer back to the mound, throws to second and Jonathan Diaz makes a great throw to first. Colby Rasmus threw out Francisco Cervelli at the plate in the 3rd inning.

Our bullpen kept things interesting. Brett Cecil gave up a hit and a walk in the 8th, but Gibby brought in Sergio Santos to pitch to Alfonzo Soriano, and Sergio got the strikeout on a beautiful pitch in the dirt, that Erik Kratz made a great block on. Then Santos gave up a deep fly to center field that Colby Rasmus made an amazing catch on, going full out and diving at the track. After a single and a walk later, Santos struck out Jacoby Ellsbury to end the game.

On offense, we did enough. Adam Lind led off the 2nd with a double. After a stupid bunt attempt by Brett Lawrie (he popped it up but Yankee pitcher Michael Pineda dropped it, Lawrie wasn't running hard and was thrown out at first), Josh Thole had an RBI single. Lind read it well from second and scored easy. After that Ryan Goins missed a hit and run sign and Thole was thrown out 'stealing'. Goins followed that with a double, his first hit of the season, but was stranded at second. It should have been a much better inning.

We scored 3 more in a fun bottom of the 8th. Melky Cabrera homered, Colby Rasmus drove a double down the right-field line and Jose Bautista crushed a homer.

Jays of the Day are Dickey (.427 WPA), Santos (.166, helped a ton by great defense, Colby's catch and Kratz block of the pitch in the dirt). I'm going to give honorable mention to Cabrera and Bautista for the homers and Colby for the double and the catch.

No Suckage Jays. Lawrie had the low mark at -.083 for the 0 for 3, including the popped up bunt.

I love beating the Yankees. The Jays are back to .500, at 3-3.

Tomorrow it is Drew Hutchison vs. CC Sabathia to win the series.

The GameThread was great fun. 1,120 comments. Hathorian led the way with 114 comments.

Of course it's extremely early in the season, but the middle of the Yankees' order has underwhelmed thus far.

After seeing the early portion of the Yankees' 2014 schedule, I got kind of excited. New York got to open up the season against the Houston Astros and Toronto Blue Jays, both of whom finished in last place in their respective divisions last year and figure to do the same thing in 2014. Because of this, I was looking forward to seeing the Yankees' bats feast against inferior teams like Houston and Toronto in the first six games. Unfortunately, that hasn't happened here in the very, very early going.

Overall offensively, the Yankees have struggled out of the gate, scoring just 2.8 runs per game through the first five contests. Collectively, the Yankees are hitting just .254/.335/.320, have yet to hit their first home run, and haven't been so hot with RISP (.250 BA) as well. Naturally, the spotlight would point towards the middle-of-the-order guys like Carlos Beltran, Brian McCann, and Alfonso Soriano as culprits to the early-season offensive struggles. And, sure enough, the Beltran-McCann-Soriano trio haven't produced much at all, combining for a very paltry .134/.148/.154 batting line through 54 plate appearances.

Among the three current middle-of-the-order bats, Soriano has looked the worst, and not by a small margin, either. Soriano came into Saturday's game looking for his first hit (0-for-12), but he did hit a couple of balls hard during yesterday's game, which perhaps could have been a sign that he was starting to come out of his early-season slide. In his final at-bat with runners at second and third in the eighth inning, though, he took two strikes right down the middle from Sergio Santos before whiffing at a slider way off the plate and in the dirt. All told, Soriano is now 0-for-16 with five strikeouts.

Beltran and McCann have been less awful, but have still been uninspiring thus far. Beltran is hitting .158/.190/.211 with just one extra base hit (double vs. Houston), while McCann is hitting .235/.235/.235 with no extra base hits, or walks, given his identical BA/OBP/SLG marks. Again, it's early, as these two have a total of 21 and 17 PA's, respectively. You can throw in the currently-injured Mark Teixeira as a contributor to the weak offensive output as well, as the first baseman hit .250/.308/.250 before pulling his hammy.

Because of the team's early-season offensive struggles, should Joe Girardi try to shake the lineup around? Eh, perhaps, but I wouldn't be too upset if he kept things mostly the same. Maybe move a couple of guys up and down a spot here and there, but nothing drastic. If Girardi wants to be creative, though, he could have Brett Gardner hit atop the order and have Jacoby Ellsbury move down to third with everyone else after that dropping down a spot, but I don't really expect him to do something like that here with just five games into the season.

Of course 54 PA's isn't all that much for one player, let alone three players like Beltran, McCann, and Soriano, but here we are. The Yankees' offense is in a rut right now and the middle-of-the-order bats aren't producing, so of course they're going to get some heat from the fans, even if it's still very, very early. After all, there's still 97% of the season still left to be played. Hopefully the offense will be able to straighten itself out here relatively soon; going back home to hitter-friendly Yankee Stadium on Monday could do the trick.

Yankees 6 Blue Jays 4

Rarely has an umpire's strike zone frustrated me more. Everything low was a strike, if CC threw it. It was hard to take, I almost walked away from the game in the middle innings.

Sabathia:

via www.brooksbaseball.net

And that last at bat for Melky Cabrera? Oh well, I'll just carry it to the gym and use it to help the workout.

Here is Hutchison's chart:

via www.brooksbaseball.net

Anyway, bad start for Drew Hutchison. He went 3.1, allowed 6 hits, walked 3, hit a batter and gave up 6 earned. He did have 6 strikeouts,  but he wasn't good. Everything was up. I know the great spring he had made us think he was going to be great, but he's going to have days like this. I just hope not too many. The plate umpire wasn't good, but he wasn't the reason Hutchison was so bad.

Our bullpen was great, especially Todd Redmond, who went 3.2 scoreless innings, allowing just 3 hits, 1 walk, with 5 strikeouts. Steve Delabar and Esmil Rogers each had a scoreless inning of work.

On offense, Melky Cabrera started us off with a home run. Unfortunately, he it a hard fly out, with 2 on, to finish the game. We scored 3 more in the 6th. Two out singles from Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion were followed by doubles from Dioner Navarro and Erik Kratz. That made a game out of it.

We came close in the 9th. Brett Lawrie singles and Adam Lind walked, with one out. But Colby Ramus popped out and Melky Cabrera, after taking a pitch that was at least 6 inches off the plate called a strike, flied out pretty hard to right field.

It was funny, Lind took some pitches that were close and got the calls, then Melky takes a pitch well off the plate and it's a strike It was hard to understand.

We had 8 hits in all. Two each for Maicer Izturis and Edwin (including a triple). Cabrera, Bautista, Dioner Navarro and Kratz each had one.

The Yankees stole 3 bases against us. I don't know if they knew something about Kratz' arm, but only one of the three steals was a close call (Gibby challenged and lost).

Jays of the Day? I'm going to give one to Todd Redmond, he only had a .075 WPA, but he was terrific. Adam Lind ha a .094 WPA and it was a great walk, but I'm not giving a JoD for just a walk.

Suckage: Hutchison (-.340) and Rasmus (-.112, pretty tough for just one at bat, but we needed him to come up big).

The Astros come to town, after tomorrow's off-day. I'm tired of the one good, one bad pattern we've had so far this season, but it's better than the all bad start we had to last season.

I'll admit I didn't like the Jays Up Close profile of Alex. I've heard all those excuses about why they did nothing this summer and they don't impress me. There aren't prizes for coming close to picking up a needed pitcher.

We had 1224 comments in the GameThreads. Great job all. Pikachu led the way (I really thought I had a shot today, I gotta start delete other people's comments). I don't know anything about Pokemon, or I'd suggest that Pikachu could evolve into the next thing.

Jeter climbed the first of what could be a few rungs on the all-time hits ladder in 2014.

There are myriad storylines for Derek Jeter's final season with the Yankees and in the majors, and one of those was advanced on Sunday. Jeter singled to third base in the top of the third inning off of Blue Jays' starter Drew Hutchison to move him into a tie for eighth place on the all-time hits list, then bumped Paul Molitor behind him with another single off Hutchison in the very next inning:

By Major League Baseball's reckoning, Jeter is eighth thanks to this pair of singles. You could argue that he moved into ninth with these hits, however, if you want to include Cap Anson's overall career work: Major League Baseball only counts Anson from 1876 on when he joined the National League and the Chicago White Stockings, cutting his 423 career hits in the National Association out from his 3,435 total. Of course, it makes total sense for MLB to only count the MLB hits, and Anson is also the only player in (or arguably in, whichever) the top-10 for whom this is even a concern.

Plus, Derek Jeter is a stand-up guy and Cap Anson a virulent racist who helped set baseball's color line in the late 1800s and likely would have refused to take the same field as Jeter, so really, who's going to miss Ole Cap from this list, anyway?

Next up on the all-time hit list is Carl Yastrzemski, with 3,419 career knocks. Jeter needs exactly 100 more to pass him, which isn't impossible by any means, but is his first challenge on the list in his final season.

Marlins shortstop Adeiny Hechavarria struggled offensively in 2013, but is off to a hot offensive start this year. Hitting coach Frank Menechino worked on Hechavarria's approach during Spring Training.

After the Miami Marlins acquired shortstop Adeiny Hechavarria from the Toronto Blue Jays, former Marlin Hanley Ramirez spoke publicly about the talent the Cuban-born athlete has. Last season with Miami, Hechavarria struggled offensively, but after several spring adjustments with new hitting coach Frank Menechino, Hechavarria is off to a solid start.

Hechavarria batted .227 in 2013, and saw a lot of time in the eight spot in the lineup because of a lack of production. He got on base at a .267 clip, which for a player that can steal 20-30 bases a season, was unimpressive.

Defense has never been a problem for Hechavarria, who made several great plays last season. He has great range and moves to both his right and left sides very well. The poor offense let to a negative 1.9 WAR last year, but with a .427 wOBA heading into Sunday's contest, Hechavarria's approach change appears to be paying off.

Working with hitting coach Frank Menechino, Hechavarria has focused on a middle-of-the-field approach. The shortstop has adjusted his hand placement a little farther away from his body, and he has shortened his swing.

"I was just disappointed in my performance last year," Hechavarria said. "That was a driving force in me improving myself this year. I made a couple of changes. I'm separating my hands from my body a little bit more. That's helped me so far."

Menechino's offensive mentality has been evident in the early starts of Marcell Ozuna, Derek Dietrich, and Christian Yelich. But Hechavarria, who batted .458 through six games, seems to be benefiting the most from the "up the middle" attitude. He has hit the ball to all fields, and is versatile in his ability to hit in several different spots in the lineup.

Manager Mike Redmond has recently placed Hechavarria in the leadoff spot, where he has thrived. Christian Yelich started Opening Day in that spot, but since Yelich is thought to be more of a two spot hitter, Hechavarria may remain leading off if he continues to be successful. Rafael Furcal was originally signed to be atop the Marlins lineup, but with the injury that landed him on the DL to begin the year, he may not be much of a threat, at least stolen base wise.

Protection for Giancarlo Stanton was an offseason priority, but internally, Hechavarria has proven early that he can be a valuable assest and can get on base ahead of Stanton, which has led to runs in the early innings.

Hechavarria had a career-best four hits in Friday night's 8-2 victory over the Padres, and should he continue to hit well, will be an essential part to Miami's offense on a nightly basis.

Last summer when Bud Selig and his friends announced the expanded replay system, most baseball fans celebrated the fact that the league finally took a step towards utilizing the tools at their disposal to better the game. As a "new age" baseball fan who thinks that umpires shouldn't exist at all, I was quite pleased with the announcement and thought it would be a great addition to the 2014 season. I was very wrong. It shouldn't be surprising anymore that Bud Selig is a bit clueless when it comes to making wise decisions, but I thought instant replay would be something you couldn't possibly screw up. But then this stuff started happening:

via Business Insider

Although it looks like Tampa Bay bench coach Dave Martinez is telling his mom he's not getting off the phone for dinner, he's actually signalling to Joe Maddon that he shouldn't challenge the play. How did anyone at MLB think it was good idea to give teams the opportunity to stall the game while they watched replays to decide if they should challenge the umpire's decision. Teams in the NFL usually have a chance to check the replays before challenging as well, but that doesn't include a head coach slowly walking on to the field and asking the referee what he had for lunch while someone tells him if he should challenge.

It's still unclear why this stalling is being allowed considering it completely defeats the purpose of a streamlined challenge system. Currently, it's a combination of a team's video department being good at watching replays alongside the ability of a manager to make as much small talk as possible with the umpire. Even Blue Jays manager John Gibbons told John Lott that he isn't a huge fan of the stalling:

You go out to say to the ump, ‘I’m just waiting to see that guy [signal from the bench], and they know, so ‘what do you want to talk about,’ that kind of thing."

While the league will begin to announce how reviews only take an average of something like 90 seconds, they'll fail to mention the extra two minutes it took for a team's bench coach to make an awkward subtle signal to a manager who is dancing around the umpire so he has a view of his own dugout. With this stalling, replays go on for minutes completely killing any flow the game had beforehand. That's not even mentioning how the actual replay process consists of a man carrying out a briefcase onto the field that contains two bulky set of headphones that don't always even work.

If I were Bud Selig the first thing I would do is resign, but after that I would immediately make some tweaks to the instant replay rules. Managers would get a flag similar to the way they do in the NFL, which they would throw on the field when they want to challenge. If they stepped on the field of play they would no longer be allowed to challenge the play. The umpire would come over and ask the manager what they wanted to challenge and then the black briefcase would be on the field in no time. Teams would only have ten seconds to decide if they wanted the umpires to take another look at the play on the field, eliminating the chance to look at the replay themselves before throwing their flag. There's no obvious downside to this solution and it would shave minutes off the time it takes to review a call on the field. Challenging would also have some skill involved, instead of the current rules where teams just watch the exact same replays the umpires will watch if they end up asking for a review.

Regardless of what changes are made to the instant replay process, here's hoping they come before the end of the season. After the first 48 games of the season, average game length was up seven minutes from last year which is quite an increase even considering the small sample. With future generations becoming more and more in need of constant action the last thing MLB needs to do is make games drag on even longer, losing hoards of young viewers in the process.