{"id":563944,"date":"2026-03-27T08:25:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T08:25:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/563944\/"},"modified":"2026-03-27T08:25:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T08:25:08","slug":"blue-jays-welcome-athletics-for-anticipated-2026-season-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/563944\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Jays welcome Athletics for anticipated 2026 season opener"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1774599908_469_imageRedirect.jpeg\" class=\"object-fit-cover\" alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Kevin Gausman (34) pitches to Canada during the first inning of an exhibition baseball game Tuesday, March 3, 2026, in Dunedin, Fla. (AP Photo\/Chris O&#8217;Meara)<\/p>\n<p>By The Canadian Press<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\tMar 27, 2026 | 2:00 AM\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>TORONTO \u2014 The Toronto Blue Jays look to build on a captivating Major League Baseball season when they host the Athletics tonight in their 2026 season opener.<\/p>\n<p>The Blue Jays took a lead into the ninth inning of Game 7 of last season\u2019s World Series before losing 5-4 in 11 innings to the Los Angeles Dodgers.<\/p>\n<p>The defending American League champions bolstered their pitching staff in the off-season with the additions of Dylan Cease, Cody Ponce and Tyler Rogers, and got another potentially big bat in Japan\u2019s Kazuma Okamoto.<\/p>\n<p>They also have a big hole to fill after star shortstop Bo Bichette left for the New York Mets in free agency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Kevin Gausman (34) pitches to Canada during the first inning of an exhibition baseball&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":563945,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":["post-563944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=563944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563944\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/563945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}