Stroman was Actually Good on Opening Day but the Jays still lost in extras

Allowing just two hits and striking out seven, Marcus Stroman started his 2019 season well enough for the Blue Jays head to extra innings and start their season with a loss, 2-0 to the Detroit Tigers.

Including 6.2 perfect innings from Jordan Zimmermann, the entire game was scoreless until the Tigers broke the seal in the top of the 10th.

A Niko Goodrum double and then a Christin Stewart home run were the only runs in this game — both were allowed on base by freshface Daniel Hudson. The dam was meant to be broken.

Teoscar Hernandez was able to break Zimmermann’s perfect game with an infield single in the 7th. Josh Harrison made a diving stop, but he was unable to make a successful throw to keep the perfect game alive. That was on his 66th pitch — the Jays just kept on swinging hard and did not care for any patience on the plate.

Stroman, Joe Biagini, and Ken Giles are able to strikeout seven straight batters through the seventh, eighth and ninth innings — the two latter striking out every batter they faced, but their stellar performances were not enough to allow the Jays’ bats to get going.

Both pitchers were holding at least no-hitters for five innings, but Nicholas Castellanos hit a two-out single to break the deadlock between the two pitchers.

Finishing up the game at the bottom of the tenth, Justin Smoak was struck out, Lourdes Gurriel Jr. was held to a popfly and Kevin Pillar groundout to finish the game.

Defensively, the Jays ultimately looked solid enough to not make a joke of themselves to start the 2019 season. A beautiful throw by Danny Jansen was able to catch Goodrum trying to steal second, demonstrating the young catcher’s ability that did not shine through in his short stint last year.

Kevin Pillar was able to make a not-so-spectacular catch while in mid-stride towards the wall to prevent a hit from Jordy Mercer.

While every single Jays fan in existence was heading into this game with no expectations, in the back of their head they always wanted to just be shocked and adore the 2019 version. A Grichuk bomb, Gurriel or Tellez finding that power from last year, anything would have been sufficient to act surprised.

But unfortunately, sticking to the “no expectations” philosophy would have been the perfect descriptor of this game. Nothing really happened and this might just be the supreme act of foreshadowing that we are all dreading.

At least the following games will have a blank canvas to build upon.

Tomorrow night, the Jays and Tigers will continue their series with a first pitch time of 7:07 pm ET. Matthew Boyd gets the start for Detroit, while Matt Shoemaker will make his first start as a Jay.