Five Games I'll Remember Most From the Blue Jays' 2026 Season

The 2026 Blue Jays season certainly didn’t go the way anyone expected. Coming off a high from the World Series win the year prior, dealing with several injuries to key players throughout the roster, and with underperformance from the Blue Jays superstars, you could say the season was a little bit of a baseball hangover.

But that doesn’t mean there weren’t still great moments. Even for an underperforming team, the Blue Jays still had moments of elation and excitement that brought us joy throughout the long baseball season. Looking back, here are the five games that I will remember most from 2026.

March 28: Blue Jays 8, Athletics 7 (11 innings)

Coming off a season-opening walk-off win against the Athletics, the Blue Jays' second game of the season was a ride and a true welcome back to the emotional roller coaster of Blue Jays baseball.

Prized offseason addition Dylan Cease made his Blue Jays debut and shined right out of the gate. He struck out reigning rookie of the year Nick Kurtz on five pitches, and after battling his command, he found his game in the middle innings, striking out the side in order in both the fourth and fifth innings. The first start of a Cy Young-calibre season was underway.

Things started to rattle once Cease left the game. After the first of what would be many relief appearances for Mason Fluharty, Brendon Little – whom John Schneider had just claimed as his spring training reliever MVP – entered the game. He immediately allowed three earned runs, and the Blue Jays fell behind 6-2 after the top of the seventh.

But the Blue Jays fought their way back.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. drove in a run with an RBI single in the bottom half. Then, in the eighth, the Jays scored two more, and in the bottom of the ninth, Alejandro Kirk hit a solo home run to tie the game at six. With Jeff Hoffman blowing a save in the season opener, Louis Varland got the nod in the top of the 10th and allowed the zombie runner to score, but the Blue Jays answered again.

This time, in the 11th, with the Blue Jays bullpen already overworked just two games into the season, the Blue Jays turned to Rule 5 pick Spencer Miles to make his major league debut.

On his first batter, he immediately got a groundball right back to him and caught the zombie runner in a rundown to record his first big league out. After a strikeout, a walk and a fly ball, Miles had shown incredible poise by not only getting out of the inning clean, but earning the win in the process. When Ernie Clement hit a walk-off single in the bottom half of the 11th, the second walk-off win in two days, the Blue Jays were off to a 2-0 start.

May 13: Blue Jays 5, Rays 3 (10 innings)

A lot had changed between the game in March and where the Blue Jays found themselves in mid-May. Coming into this game, the Blue Jays were 18-24; they had lost three straight and seven of their previous nine, and even though it was early, they felt like they were quickly losing their place in the standings.

Dylan Cease was on the mound again, and he continued his dominance: he fired seven innings, allowing just one run while striking out nine, his third straight seven-inning outing. But the Blue Jays offence was in a funk, and despite drawing four walks off Griffin Jax. They could muster only a Kazuma Okamoto sac fly paired with a 1-for-10 line with runners in scoring position; they couldn't score more than that through nine innings.

Entering the 10th tied at one, Jeff Hoffman allowed two singles, two stolen bases, and, most importantly, two runs. It certainly felt like the Blue Jays were going to lose yet again. It would have been their eighth loss in their last 10.

The Jays were looking for a moment, something that could spark the team and help them go on a run. The 2026 season was starting to feel like the first part of 2025, when the offence was struggling, and a Bo Bichette pinch-hit home run in Texas stole a win for the Blue Jays, and they were off to the races from there. For a moment, it looked like the Blue Jays found that spark in the bottom half, with George Springer running at second base and Guerrero and Okamoto both walking, setting the stage for Daulton Varsho to hit the Blue Jays' first walk-off grand slam since Steve Pearce in 2017.

Ultimately, the home run didn’t magically fix the Blue Jays' season, but it gave the team and the fans a moment they desperately needed. The team then went on to win 10 of their next 15 and crawled back to the .500 mark. And for at least a few weeks, it felt like the Blue Jays were back.

May 20: Blue Jays 2, Yankees 1

One of those 10 wins in their next 15 games following the Varsho walk-off grand slam was a trip back to the Bronx. The last time the Blue Jays were there, they had successfully pulled off a bullpen day to win the ALDS three games to one, punching their ticket into the League Championship Series.

The Yankees showed they were ready this time. They had taken the first two games of the series, including tagging Dylan Cease for five earned runs the day prior, and had their ace Cam Schlittler on the mound. Countering for the Blue Jays was rookie phenom Trey Yesavage, who had made only four starts at that point. While the numbers were good, the Jays had yet to see the dominance they had seen from him in the 2025 postseason.

Well, the two pitchers were as advertised. Yesavage was mowing them down. He allowed just two hits and struck out eight Yankee hitters, and you caught another glimpse of the upside the Jays rookie pitcher has.

Unfortunately for the Jays, Schlittler was on the mound that day, too. The Blue Jays had just one batter reach base the first time through the order, and by the seventh inning, the scoreboard was knotted at zeros.

Then the Blue Jays offence did what they do best: They got scrappy. Ernie Clement had an infield single, Jesús Sánchez drew a walk, and then Brandon Valenzuela tried to sacrifice himself, but the bunt was perfect, and he ended up reaching base himself, setting up the bases-loaded, no-out situation for Andrés Giménez.

From there, Giménez had one of the best plate appearances of the year. Every time it looked like Schlittler was going to win the battle, Giménez found a way to keep fighting. He worked an 11-pitch plate appearance that included seven foul balls, not only to draw a walk but to knock Schlittler out of the game and, more importantly, give the Blue Jays the lead. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. added a sac fly, and despite Louis Varland allowing a run in the bottom of the ninth, he struck out Amed Rosario, and the Blue Jays were back to their winning ways.

This game led to Schlittler's comments about the Blue Jays “BABIP-ing you to death” and was a key part of the narrative in the Cease vs. Schlittler AL Cy Young chase. This game may not be remembered by everyone, but it fit the script for how the Blue Jays were going to win games in 2026: be scrappy on offence and elite at preventing runs. On this Wednesday night in the Bronx, the Blue Jays did exactly that.

July 8: Blue Jays 10, Giants 0

Sometimes a game turns out perfectly.

The Blue Jays offence exploded in the top of the first, scoring five runs off Logan Webb, including an RBI single by Daulton Varsho and a grand slam by Kazuma Okamoto, and the Jays were off and running early. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and George Springer went back-to-back in the ninth to push the team to double-digit runs for the fifth time this season.

But the story of this game wasn’t the offence; it was Dylan Cease.

Cease retired the first nine batters he faced, and as he worked through the Giants lineup, the possibility of something special started to creep into the minds of everyone watching. He carried a perfect game into the fifth before a two-out walk to Willy Adames ended that part of the dream, but the no-hitter remained intact. He walked another batter in the sixth and seventh, but each time, Cease found a way out of the inning, and suddenly he was standing on the mound in the ninth with history within reach.

By the ninth inning, no one could hide from what was happening. The Blue Jays had had only one in franchise history, and that was from Dave Stieb over 25 years earlier. Bowden Francis had his chances, as did Marco Estrada, Dustin McGowan, and Brandon Morrow before him, but Cease was trying to do what they couldn’t and get through nine innings without allowing a hit.

As Cease took the mound in the bottom of the ninth on 115 pitches, John Schneider let his ace go out there and try for history. Unfortunately, it wasn't meant to be; three pitches into the ninth, Heliot Ramos lined a single up the middle, and the bid for the Blue Jays' second no-hitter was officially gone.

Cease would have another dominant start two weeks later in Fenway Park, but this is the one I'll remember most. If Dylan Cease ever gets a no-hitter in his Blue Jays career, this start in San Francisco will be the one that gave us the tease that it was possible.

September 27: Jays 5, Reds 1

This one isn’t necessarily about the game itself; it's more about what it meant to us as fans. This was Game 162, and with the Blue Jays already mathematically eliminated from playoff contention, the game didn't mean much in the standings. But for the players on the field, the sold-out Rogers Centre and the many watching at home, there was still plenty at stake emotionally. 

First, this was George Springer's last game as a Blue Jay (for now). John Schneider had him hit in the leadoff spot, as a tribute to him being one of the best power-hitting leadoff hitters of all time, and after he hit a double leading off the bottom of the third, he was removed for a pinch runner, allowing all the fans in attendance to give Springer a standing ovation for everything he’s done as a Toronto Blue Jay over the past six seasons.

On the pitching side, the emotion ran even deeper. 42-year-old Max Scherzer took the mound for the Blue Jays on short rest and needed 10 strikeouts to tie Justin Verlander on the all-time strikeout list. He didn’t get there, but he still put on an incredible performance, striking out seven and throwing a season-high 114 pitches.

The game had several nice moments. When John Schneider came out to talk to Scherzer on the mound, it was a quick visit, as any thought Schneider might have had of talking Mad Max out of the game was quickly pushed away by memories of Game 4 of the ALCS.

After Max was removed from the game, there were incredible moments with his family, and shots of him going up and down the dugout sharing smiles, hugs, and moments with his teammates, showing how much love Scherzer had on this team.

Whether or not this was the last game of his career, the first-ballot Hall of Famer remains one of baseball's most prominent pitchers over the past two decades. He won't be going into the Hall of Fame with a Blue Jays cap on, but you can’t tell the Max Scherzer story without mentioning the Blue Jays, and seeing him have that moment in Blue Jays blue was incredibly special.

The game itself had its moments. Charles McAdoo and Brandon Valenzuela both hit home runs. Yet, what makes this game so memorable is that it was the potential end for two legends in the game of baseball, and two people who will forever have lasting moments in Blue Jays history. That's a memory we will carry with us forever.