Shape of the Blue Jays: Soriano, Bateman, Scherzer

Welcome to Shape of the Blue Jays, my column where I dig into Statcast numbers to analyze recent pitch shape and swing shape trends for Toronto Blue Jays players and discuss how they have impacted their performance. Click here to read the last edition.

All stats entering August 14, 2026.

Quick Hits: Where'd the Barrels Go?

• Entering Thursday, the Blue Jays were 10-4 in their last 14 games and had climbed to within 1.5 games of the final Wild Card spot. Given this, I'd start this week's column on a more positive note in an ideal world, but this nugget was too good not to mention: They finished their 7-0 loss in the finale against the Red Sox with an expected batting average of .157. That is their fourth-lowest single-game xBA of the Statcast era, in games where they struck out five or fewer times.
• Yes, they were up against Payton Tolle, a very good pitcher. In fact, Tolle was coming off a 14-strikeout performance against the Athletics, and he failed to record one until the seventh inning against the Jays. It sounds like an accomplishment, but they only had three hard-hit balls all afternoon, and all of them were on the ground. This game perfectly encapsulated the fact that being a low-strikeout offense means nothing if you can't hit for power. The 2026 Jays have shown us this time and again.
• It was encouraging to see the team come out of the trade deadline with a new sense of energy and reinsert themselves into the conversation in the still-muddy American League. Ultimately, though, their recent stretch is probably unsustainable if they don't start putting balls over the fence more consistently.

José Soriano

The changes we saw from José Soriano in his first start with his new team were pretty much what was expected throughout the industry. Shoutout to Jays Centre's own Mike LeSage for sharing this video in our writers' Slack channel that summarizes them well. (Pitching development content with sarcastic undertones is on Instagram Reels now? My hope for the future has been restored.)

On Wednesday against Boston, Soriano (6 IP, 1 ER, 4 H, 4 K, 2 BB) pulled a different lever by throwing his sinker a season-high 45.6% of the time. While he largely avoided throwing four-seamers to lefties for a second consecutive start, he reintroduced the pitch to righties (33% usage). 37 of the 46 pitches he threw to righties were either sinkers or four-seamers. During his second trip through the order, he suddenly fed Boston's lefties a ton of splitters to great effect (60% chase).

Beyond the creativity with his arsenal, I appreciated Soriano's willingness to throw his sinker at the top of the zone to lefties. He didn't do this with the Angels, but he dropped eight sinkers above the vertical center of the zone and got four called strikes, one foul, and one groundout, missing just once. Of course, he continued to pound the bottom rail too. If this is a pitch that's going to play at both ends of the zone to opposite-handed hitters, his former team is going to look foolish for not experimenting with more different strategies with him.

José Soriano Sinker Locations vs LHH, 8/12 (Statcast)

Brett Bateman

Brett Bateman has quickly endeared himself to the fanbase after his first six games as a major leaguer. His .259/.310/.333 slash line is nothing to write home about, but he's 3-for-6 in high-leverage at-bats. Small sample, but many inexperienced players will get humbled in big moments, and Bateman has passed that test so far. 

The 24-year-old center fielder has a short, compact left-handed swing. It's rather unique in its high-tilt yet oppo-oriented, let-it-travel profile. I have a personal tool that displays similarity scores for any hitter based on their bat speed, swing length, tilt, attack angle & direction, and intercept point. Bateman's closest mechanical left-handed comps so far are Jonathan Aranda, Brice Turang, and Nathan Lukes. Aranda is an example of a hitter who has figured out how to lift a ton of balls with this type of swing, while Turang and Lukes are more groundball/line drive guys, similar to Bateman's smaller-sample batted ball distribution. The latter two are, of course, some of the better bat-to-ball hitters in the game, a skill Bateman is also known for.

Given his speed, it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if Bateman continues to hit the ball on the ground half the time. Perhaps Aranda could be a useful model if he were to work on adding power.

Brett Bateman Swing Mechanics Comps, 2026

Max Scherzer

Since turning 42, Max Scherzer has authored his best stretch of the season, posting a 2.20 ERA with 13 strikeouts and three walks in three August starts (16.1 IP). One of those 13 strikeouts put him inside the top 10 all-time leaderboard, and on Thursday, he surpassed the 3,500 innings mark. It continues to be extremely cool that Scherzer chose to be a Blue Jay at this later stage of his career.

The biggest factor at play in his resurgence is better stuff. In his outing against the Phillies last Saturday, his fastball averaged 94.2 mph, a season-high. While it returned to 92-93 on Thursday, his secondaries were quite strong, particularly his curveball (44% whiff, 50% chase, 3/3 first-pitch strikes). He's been getting more drop on it in recent weeks: After it averaged around -5 to -6 inches of induced vertical break for most of his season, it's down to -7/-8 territory so far in August, averaging -8" for a second consecutive start on Thursday. His changeup (43% whiff on Thursday) averaged 16" of run after running more than usual in his prior two starts as well.

John Schneider put it beautifully when he said sustainability is no longer a consideration for his bullpen at this point in the season. The length Scherzer has given them as of late, then, could not have come at a better time.

Max Scherzer Swings and Misses (Curveball & Changeup only), 8/13 (Statcast)