Two months ago, I went to a game at the Rogers Centre as a last minute decision when I happened to be in Toronto for other reasons. It was the first time I’d been there since Opening Day 2003, a game was notable for being the game where Derek Jeter dislocated his shoulder. Blue Jays doctors treated his $189 million contract shoulder on the field, then a week later, they all resigned once they learned a recent decision by the Canadian Medical Protective Association made it so they weren’t covered by malpractice insurance anymore. They hadn’t done anything wrong, but they weren’t going to risk treating another multi-million dollar athlete again without coverage.
What’s the moral of that story for Astros fans? Well, if you want the medical staff gone, just invite Derek Jeter to Houston and dislocate his shoulder. (I’m kidding, I’m kidding.)
Tonight, the Houston Astros begin a 3 game series with the Toronto Blue Jays north of the border in Canada. I thought I’d offer a brief overview of Rogers Centre from a fan’s perspective to kick off the series.
I remember when Rogers Centre first opened in 1989. It was called the SkyDome back then; I still tend to call it the SkyDome. SkyDome is such a cool name for a ballpark. Rogers Centre sounds like somewhere where you’d expect it’d be a beautiful day in the neighborhood.
I didn’t see my first game in the SkyDome until 8 years later in 1997, but even then it still felt new and amazing. Not only was it was the first retractable roof stadium, there was a Hard Rock Cafe inside of the stadium. A Hard Rock Cafe! That doesn’t seem that nuts now; every stadium today is designed like the Houston Galleria, but back then, that’s all anyone could talk about.
Also, you could get tickets for $4.50. Canadian.
It’s a little different now. Rogers Centre is the 5th oldest MLB ballpark still in use. What was shiny and new looked dirty and in need of a good power-washing.
It was gray and rainy that day, which probably didn’t help, but hey, that’s what the retractable roof is for.
It wasn’t $4.50 Canadian, but I did manage to grab a single ticket from a third party vendor for $18 US, the cheapest seat I could find just to get in the building.
The Hard Rock Cafe isn’t there anymore. Apparently, it’s been gone since 2009. There’s not a whole lot of built-in stuff to do or places to go in the stadium, but they still made the venue inviting. A band was playing live music before the show, and in the upper concourse.
I said “band”, but now that I look at my photo again, it was just two guys with guitars, playing “Jesse’s Girl.” That’s still really good for upper concourse entertainment. I don’t think Daikin Park even recognizes upper bowl fans as real people.
I found my assigned nosebleed seat. An $18 ticket naturally doesn’t get you anywhere near the action, but the wide angle view from my iPhone exaggerates how far away the seats felt. The stadium, with the roof closed, felt like an arena. It felt closer to being in the Toyota Center than to being in Daikin Park or Reliant Stadium.
I watched from these seats for all of about one inning, before I went to move down and look around, check out the team store, eat some poutine, look at any exhibits they had.
The Blue Jays team store is great. It’s huge, and it has an ample selection of all different kinds of team merchandise for both adults and children. I’ve never understood why ballparks’ kids’ section are so small. That’s who you want to buy gear for. The selection should be just as great for youth sizes, and at Rogers Centre, it is.
Another nice thing about the merch is that it’s not all made by Fanatics. Fanatics products are terrible. Who’s the genius at Fanatics that decided t-shirts need 4 labels all stacked on top of each other, one of them being a foot long, and that they need to go on the left shoulder, instead of the standard back-of-the-neck location? I have to assume they are quadriplegic with no sensation from the neck down, because they’re the worst clothing labels in the absolute worst location possible.
The Blue Jays have team apparel made by Roots, a famous Canadian clothing company. Genuinely good quality, although paying $80 for a t-shirt kind of negated the satisfaction I had from only paying $18 to go to an MLB game. Oh well, at least it was 80 Canadian dollars.
Also, yes, that is a DJ in the middle of the team store. Is this a thing now? I’ve never seen that at Daikin. Or is this some quirk specific to Canada or Toronto? I only ask because that evening I decided to catch a Raptors game too, and they had a DJ in their team store too!
Now that I look at these photos, I think they have the same equipment, with the same pretend vinyl records. Well that’s good, because they’re in pretend clubs.
This is the 50th year of Blue Jays baseball, so while there wasn’t a lot of places to go or things to do in the ballpark the way there are at say, Coors Field or Petco Park, they did have a lot of nice displays highlighting special moments and relics from franchise history. Here’s a display celebrating George Springer’s home run that won them the 2025 pennant:
And Blue Jays’ uniforms throughout the years:
I wish I had some food pics to share with you. I went to go buy some poutine, but it was close to $20 CA, and having just paid $80 CA for a t-shirt, I decided I didn’t need french fries and gravy that badly.
I settled in to a nice standing room spot to watch more of the game, at the top of the lower bowl behind the 3rd base line.
For artificial turf, it looks pretty good. Much better than whatever they were carpeting with back in 2003. Why can’t Globe Life Field use this stuff? If they aren’t going to go with real grass, they should use what Toronto has. (But Globe Life Field should use real grass. It’s 2026 Major League Baseball, and we have the technology. If Houston can pull it off, Arlington ought to be able to too.)
Max Scherzer got absolutely rocked in this game: 8 runs in 2.1 IP. The crowd still gave him a healthy (and not sarcastic!) round of applause when he came off the mound. I’m not sure if it’s just because Canadians are just polite people, or if it’s because they know that every time you see Max pitch now, that might be the last time he ever pitches. (Yes, Max is on the IL now.)
I found the scoreboard interesting. First off, they’re not using the metric system. I assumed they wouldn’t, but I wasn’t sure. In Japan they report pitches in km/hr: The Land of Rising 160 km/hr Fastball.
What’s more intriguing to me is that they not only put up the pitch speed, the pitch type, but the vertical and horizontal break too. Very Statcast progressive.
In the lineups they post their OPS instead of their BA. Also progressive. Kind of. OPS isn’t exactly new, it’s over 40 years old now. Still, kudos to Toronto for shedding the shackles of being slave to batting average. I can’t really tell if there’s room on that scoreboard for a 1 in front of the decimal point, so I’m curious how Yordan’s OPS will display on this board.
The Blue Jays got trounced by the Twins that game. I left after the fifth inning. I was hoping to make it to the 7th inning to see what songs they sing, but I had somewhere I needed to be and it took Max forever to get through the 3rd inning. I’m sure they sing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” What else? The Barenaked Ladies? It was Sunday, but I doubt they would sing God Bless America. Is there a Canadian equivalent to that song? Why are we still singing God Bless America in the 7th inning stretch in Houston anyways? Okay, that’s a topic for another piece another time.
Okay that’s the end of my vacation slideshow. Let’s take a look at today’s game.
Astros @ Blue Jays Game Information and Gamethread Details
Hunter Brown takes the mound for the Astros, his second start since coming off the IL. He didn’t miss a beat in his first start, going 5.2 IP on 92 pitches and only allowing 1 run. Brown struck out 7 and walked 3, and touched 97.5 mph with his 4-seamer. The Astros will lean heavily on his starts to try make up ground in the division. They sit 3 games behind the Mariners currently.
The Astros will face Dylan Cease, who’s having a great 2026 season. Over 13 starts, he is 4-3 with a 2.71 ERA. His 110 strikeouts lead the AL, and his 13.6 K/9 would be the highest in the majors among qualified pitchers, even higher than Jacob Misiorowski’s 13.4 K/9. Cease missed 2 starts due to a hamstring strain a few weeks ago, which is why he’s 4 innings short of being listed as a qualified pitcher. If he goes 5 innings tonight, he’ll rejoin the list.
Since Cease returned from his IL stint, he’s had two starts: a 6 inning, 1 earned run outing where he struck out 11, and a 5 inning scoreless outing, but which required 108 pitches, as he walked 4 batters to go along with 7 strikeouts. His WHIP on the season is 1.19 and he carries a 3.8 BB/9.
Cease is a fastball and slider pitcher who also mixes in his changeup a little more against lefties. His fastball has maxed out at 99.7 mph this season. His 37.6 Whiff% is 97th percentile in the league, on par with Misiorowski.
Many of the Astros have considerable experience facing Cease. Yordan Alvarez, has 23 plate appearances against Cease, but Cease seems to be one of the rare pitchers that Yordan hasn’t solved. He has 2 hits, both singles, in 18 at-bats for a .111 BA and .372 OPS, as a well a a sacrifice fly. He has struck out 8 times while walking twice, one of them by IBB. Of note, he’s been HBP twice by Cease.
Jose Altuve, on the other hand, has fared well against Cease, with 6 hits, including 2 home runs in 17 at-bats, while striking out just twice, for a .353 BA and 1.095 OPS.
This post will be updated with starting lineups as they are made available.
The game will be broadcast at 6:07 p.m. CT on SCHN with radio coverage on KBME 790 AM.
We hope you will join us and the rest of the Launch Angle community for the game! The turnout has been amazing on the TLA Discord Server for the game threads.
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All photographs, including feature photo, by mhatter106.
