The Toronto Blue Jays are 3-2 in their first five games and their starting pitching has been excellent. The Jays have held the defending World Series champion Washington Nationals to one run apiece in back-to-back wins, including Tuesday's 5-1 triumph, and their starters have a 2.45 earned-run average thus far.
It was veteran Tanner Roark's turn to have a strong night on the mound Tuesday, as he allowed just one run on three hits in five innings. Roark struck out five and walked none.
Roark, a 16-game winner with the Nationals in 2016, was asked by a Washington reporter on a postgame Zoom call about how the Jays have been dealing with the adversity of not knowing where they would play "home" games. And just as he had with Toronto reporters on Monday, Roark couldn't contain his enthusiasm about coming to Sahlen Field.
"The ultimate thing we wanted was we wanted to find out where we were actually going to play," Roark said. "When Pittsburgh got nixed and then the Orioles situation where we were building around stuff up there, I was one of the guys who voted straight-up to play in Buffalo. Go with the old-school route."
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And don't think it's because he has a good history here. Roark went 0-2, 4.91 in two starts in Buffalo for the Syracuse Chiefs in 2012, although he was a hard-luck loser in his second one. In a 1-0 Bisons win on Aug. 4 of that season, Roark went seven innings and lost only because he gave up an RBI double to Lucas Duda in the sixth.
Roark said the Jays need to make a homefield advantage out of the home of the Bisons.
"Ultimately it's going to build that cohesion with playing at a Triple-A facility. It's going to build the toughness, the grit," he said. "Other teams are not going to want to come in and play us just because it's Triple-A. They don't have all the amenities as they do in a big-league ballpark. We're going to be known as grinders and I love grinders because that's what makes you who you are at the end of your career or the end of the day. I think it's going to build up a lot of camaraderie and team bonding."
The Jays play their "home opener" against the Nationals Wednesday night at 6 in Washington, batting as the home team in Nationals Park. It's a massive pitching matchup as top Toronto prospect Nate Pearson makes his major-league debut against Washington ace and three-time Cy Young Award winner Max Scherzer.
Check out what Roark had to say here:
