Spring Begins Tomorrow
According to the calendar, Spring may not start until March 21st, but for Blue Jays fans … Spring officially gets underway tomorrow.
In just over 24 hours, the Blue Jays kick off their Spring Training schedule against the Detroit Tigers at Dunedin Stadium. Unfortunately, we will be relegated to Twitter updates and constantly refreshing the boxscore to find out how the Blue Jays will fare against the Tigers.
Luckily, Friday’s game against the Philadelphia Phillies will be broadcasted on MLB.com, but the only way to listen live is through MLB’s GameDay Audio (which I’m told will be available later today).
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For just $19.95, I highly suggest subscribing – the GameDay subscription allows you to listen to this Friday’s game against the Phillies, as well as a few addition weekday games and all the weekend broadcasts.
Plus, you also get to listen to all the regular season games online – which is a bonus because keep in mind The Fan is not allowed to transmit the games on their website.
Speaking of Friday, thanks to the insight from Jordan Bastian’s latest blog post, we discovered that Marc Rzepczynski will start the game against the Phillies.
Brett Cecil will also get some work, followed by Kyle Drabek in his highly anticipated debut as a Blue Jay. The Phillies will counter on the mound with Cole Hamels, J.C. Ramirez, Ryan Vogelsong and Antonio Bastardo.
Drabek will probably look impressive tomorrow – By that point, I imagine most of the regular guys in the lineup will be out, so he'll get to rack up some Ks against AAA or AA fodder.
Gameday Audio used to be $14.99. I don't think it's worth it for me, as I would only get 5 games that are unavailable on the Fan590, which I get in Kitchener on good radio sets and of course, on channel 904 Rogers.
Also, a few of those games will be available from the opponents' radio broadcasts online. Most are not blacked out during ST, as I just found out today.
If you can't get the Fan590, or the Fan Radio Network like I do, it is well worth it for the regular season. Plus, the archive feature is great during the off season.
It is really cool that the Fan590 is carrying so many ST games this year.
Gameday audio is totally worth it for me, as it means I won't have to crib off of dodgy internet radio streams this year 🙂
Steve, Drabek actually pitches on Friday – I was teeing up Friday's pitching matchups for some reason, not today's (Wednesday). But I am psyched to see how Drabek does, especially against his former team!
Andy, I would pay the $20 just to listen to those Spring Training games, so the regular season games are a bonus. I also like those added features for GameDay Premium, so I will definitely look into it (if they ever fix the MLB website).
Dragonzigg, GameDay audio is probably the way to go. I discovered a couple of websites that streamed the games last year, but I think they caught on half way through the season that they're not allowed to broadcast online.
Steve, sorry – my mistake. R-Zep, Drabek and Cecil will be pitching Thursday, not Friday. I got ahead of myself a little bit there.