Owen Hill

We break down the Blue Jays 11-7 victory over the Athletics. Ernie Clement's second straight big night leads a second straight double-digit scoring effort, as the Blue Jays improve to 29-28. View full video

Let's talk about the dominant, 12-0 Blue Jays victory over the Athletics. Jose Berríos strikes out nine over six scoreless and the Jays mash four homers amid an offensive explosion with Ernie Clement leading the way with three hits. View full video

We break down the Blue Jays 2-0 win over the Rangers. Bo Bichette's big swing is enough to secure the win after the pitching staff combines to throw a one-hitter. View full video

We break down the Blue Jays' series-opening 2-1 win against the Rangers. Kevin Gausman builds off his last start, and two runs is enough offence to secure the win. View full video

Yimi García, one of the most trusted relievers in the Blue Jays bullpen, was placed on the 15-day injured list on Saturday with an impingement in his right shoulder. There’s not a whole lot of information about his timeline to return, although the hope is that his absence won’t last long. Still, while he’s gone, his innings, which have come almost entirely in high-leverage spots, are going to need to go to someone else. If you told a Jays fan at the start of spring training that García would hit the IL at some point, their natural reaction would likely be to expect guys like Erik Swanson and Nick Sandlin to take on a higher-leverage role. Yet, with the two of them already away from the team battling injuries of their own, the Blue Jays are going to need somebody else to step up in a big way. My pick to be this guy, from the limited options available (the Jays hardly have an excess of bullpen arms that have shown they deserve to be thrown into the fire), is Yariel Rodríguez. Rodríguez's perception in Blue Jay land has been something of a rollercoaster since he signed as an international free agent prior to the 2024 season. There was some serious excitement heading into his first big league campaign that he could stick as a starter. Although he survived 2024, working a not-quite-catastrophic 4.47 ERA in 21 starts, he had a hard time carrying his velocity deep into his outings and often found himself struggling to locate the strike zone – and getting knocked around when he did. His league-average strikeout percentage and below-average fastball velocity were indicative that he’d benefit from a shift to shorter appearances. So, coming into 2025, with a lot of Rodríguez's shine from the 2023-24 offseason worn off, the Blue Jays very quietly declined to stretch him out as starting pitching depth. Instead, they’ve given him shorter assignments, no more than two innings, and requested that he, and I’m paraphrasing here, throw the s*** out of the ball. Instead of trying to leave some gas in the tank for the fourth, fifth, and sixth innings, Rodríguez comes out of the ‘pen with the intent to attack hitters with his best stuff from the jump. Thanks to this, we’ve seen his average fastball velocity increase more than two miles per hour, now sitting at 96 and at times touching 98 mph. In turn, this has helped raise his whiff and strikeout rates from about league average to considerably above it. The other adjustment Rodríguez made coming into the year was eliminating his curveball in favour of his much more effective slider. As a starting pitcher, it made sense for him to have two breaking balls in his arsenal, especially when facing a lineup for the second and third time in an outing. Now a reliever, he doesn’t need to worry about a hitter getting comfortable against his featured pitches and can always offer his best stuff. In 2024, Rodríguez threw his slider 28% of the time and his curveball 10% of the time. Last year, his slider was a solid pitch, registering a 103 Stuff+ according to FanGraphs, whereas the curveball graded out with a poor Stuff+ of just 92 (league average is 100). This showed up in the results as well. Opponents hit the curveball to the tune of a .348 average, and it had a Statcast run value of -6 despite only being thrown 157 times. This meant that even though his slider was an effective pitch (+1 run value), Rodríguez finished 2024 in just the 11th percentile in breaking ball run value. Now, Rodríguez has bumped up his slider usage to 36%, and by simply eliminating the curveball, he has gone from having one of the worst breaking ball run values in baseball to one of the best, sitting in the 86th percentile early in 2025. Now that we’ve checked under the hood and everything looks encouraging, the most important development of Rodríguez's 2025 is how positive his results have been. Since giving up a run in two of his first four outings of the season, he has settled in very nicely, allowing opponents to hit just .154 against him while working a 1.74 ERA since April 9. It’s pretty clear John Schneider and the Jays have recognized his success, because even before García went down, Rodríguez had been finding himself in more and more close games, especially when García or Jeff Hoffman were unavailable because they’d pitched the previous day. García’s absence leaves a big hole in the Blue Jays bullpen, and the jury is still out on whether there’s a reliever in-house with the sauce to fill it. If there is, my money is on Yariel Rodríguez. Stats updated prior to games on Monday, May 26. View full article

We examine Kevin Gausman's pitch sequencing against Jackson Merrill, explaining why it was so effective, despite Merrill seeing the same pitch repeatedly. View full video

A faster react vlog tonight, following the Blue Jays' 3-1 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays. With the pitching staff on fumes, Eric Lauer and Braydon Fisher gave the Jays what they needed to win, but the bats went quiet. View full video

The Blue Jays overcame a Jeff Hoffman blown save, as Nathan Lukes completed the sweep of the Padres with a walk-off single in the 11th inning. View full video

The Jays are rolling over the Padres as the offence explodes for 14 runs and Kevin Gausman looks like vintage Kevin Gausman. Daulton Varsho and Nathan Lukes homered as the Jays combined for 14 hits and three walks against Padres pitching. View full video

Despite a few blips on the radar and injuries to some key guys, the Blue Jays' bullpen has been a bright spot for the team early in the season. Jays relievers have paired their league-best K% of 28.4% with a 9.0% BB% to get the best K-BB% in baseball (entering games on Wednesday). Despite flashes of dominance, Toronto’s is just the ninth best bullpen in baseball according to fWAR (1.5), mainly because of the pure number of home runs they’ve given up as a group. They’re tied with the Athletics and Rays for the ninth most homers allowed in baseball, which has led to a slightly inflated 3.80 ERA, putting them in the middle of the pack at 14th in baseball. All things considered, a bullpen with elite strikeout numbers but league-average results is something most Jays fans would have signed up for in a heartbeat after the absolute tire-fire we were subjected to watching in 2024. The back end of the bullpen was bolstered this offseason with the addition of Jeff Hoffman and the return of Yimi García, while returning guys like Chad Green and Yariel Rodríguez have gotten big outs in high-leverage spots as well, especially when the former two have been unavailable. The two lefties, Brendon Little and Mason Fluharty, have been a revelation, as both have worked their way into John Schneider’s circle of trust. They have pitched high-intensity innings, getting both left-handed and right-handed hitters out. The final two bullpen spots have been a bit of a revolving door as the rotation has needed help and guys have struggled, but Braydon Fisher and José Ureña have successfully filled those spots in recent days. With that being said, let’s get into my personal Blue Jays bullpen trust hierarchy! Low Leverage Only, Please! As much as we want to avoid seeing these guys in the game whenever possible, their ability to eat multiple innings in blowouts, either wins or losses, and pitch early in games on bullpen days is vital to every major league team. In the Blue Jays' case, in which the starting rotation has faced some injury issues, forcing the front office to reach into their depth options, these guys have become even more important, as they can open games before a guy like Eric Lauer pitches bulk innings. We probably won’t see the guys in this tier closing games any time soon, but it doesn’t mean they’re not important! José Ureña José Ureña is a recent addition to this Blue Jays bullpen, as he signed as a free agent earlier this month after he was DFA'd by the New York Mets. We haven’t seen a whole lot of Ureña in his brief time as a Blue Jay, and digging into his stats from this year, we can see why. In 7 1/3 innings across three appearances as a Blue Jay, Ureña has given up more home runs (three) than batters he’s struck out (two). The standard small sample size caveat applies here, but when we dig into his peripherals, we can see an expected ERA over 13, an expected batting average close to .400, and the fact that he’s at the bottom of the barrel when it comes not only to missing bats, but missing barrels. It’s not hard to see why Ureña’s made just three appearances in nearly three weeks on the Blue Jays roster, and I’d expect his roster spot to be the first available when one of Erik Swanson, Ryan Burr, or Nick Sandlin is healthy enough to rejoin the big league team. Braydon Fisher Fisher is another new face to the Blue Jays bullpen, called up from Triple A on May 7 and making his major league debut just a few days later. Another small sample size caveat is required here, but in four appearances, Fisher has looked effective coming out of the bullpen. Unlike Ureña, there’s a little bit to dream on when it comes to Fisher’s stuff. He relies heavily on his breaking balls, a hard slider in the upper 80s and a slower curveball in the low 80s, but so far his approach has been effective. Fisher’s done a good job of getting swings outside of the zone and has yet to walk a hitter in five innings while striking out six. He’s only thrown his mid-90s four-seamer 12 percent of the time, so I have some concerns that word will get out on what Fisher is trying to do to hitters soon, but so far, it’s hard not to be happy with what we’ve seen from him. He’s got a lot of work to do to build up enough trust to move into the next tier of bullpen arm, but he’s on the right track early in his career. Chad Green This one might be a surprise for a lot of readers! Chad Green has been effective this season, pitching to a 3.48 ERA and giving up just 17 hits (.227 BA). Yet, gone are the days of Green being one of the most feared relievers in the New York Yankees' bullpen. At 33 years old and with a couple of major arm injuries behind him, Green has lost a tick on his high-spin four-seam fastball, which has also hurt his already mediocre slider. Not only does Green not miss bats like he used to, but he is currently giving up hard contact and barrels at a first percentile rate. He’s managed to survive so far this year without giving up too much catastrophic damage, but he’s already given up seven homers in just 20 1/3 innings pitched, the most among any reliever in baseball. To be frank, it’s really hard to use a reliever that’s liable to give up a homer at any time in close games! His expected ERA sits at 5.73, and while flyball pitchers with his profile tend to outperform their expected stats, I have a hard time trusting Green will be able to outrun them if he continues to rack up high-leverage innings. Trusted in Close Games, but Not Against the Top of the Order This category is for the guys I trust to get big outs late in games but feel a lot more comfortable watching against the bottom of the lineup or with more than a one-run cushion. Yariel Rodríguez The lone name in this category is Yariel Rodríguez, and based on how he’s been used recently, I think John Schneider agrees with my evaluation. The Blue Jays pushed Rodríguez to be a starter in his first season as a big leaguer, but those days look to be done based on how effective he’s looked as a reliever so far in 2025. Instead of having to leave some gas in the tank and maintain his composure for five or six innings, Rodríguez is now freed up to come out of the 'pen throwing max effort four-seamers and rip off hard sliders for an inning or two, and he looks really comfortable doing it. After a few blips early in the season, eight of Rodríguez’s last nine appearances have been scoreless, with five of them being more than one inning of work. On Tuesday night, in a game the Blue Jays were winning 3-0, Schneider opted to use Rodríguez in the eighth inning against the nine through two hitters in the Padres lineup, rather than sending out Yimi García to set up for Jeff Hoffman as we’ve seen so often in 2025. Rodríguez rewarded Schneider with a 1-2-3 inning, including groundouts from Fernando Tatis Jr. and Luis Arráez. Am I still a little bit skeptical of Yariel Rodríguez? Absolutely. But based on what he’s done lately, I think trying him out in some higher-leverage situations is absolutely warranted, especially considering the benefits García and Hoffman will see from not being forced to pitch in every close game. The Lefties I’m sure I could have fit the lefties into one of my other three categories, but considering how strategically the Jays deploy their left-handed relievers, and how effective the southpaws have been at getting the job done so far, I figured they deserved their own group. Mason Fluharty Mason Fluharty is another Blue Jays reliever who made his major league debut this year, and in 19 appearances, his success has been one of the best developments for this team early in the year. He doesn’t light up the radar gun, with his cutter averaging just under 90 mph and sweeper sitting in the low 80s, but his nearly sidearm delivery and impressive movement profiles on both pitches have helped him not only to induce weak contact but miss a lot of bats entirely. Fluharty has a very good 31.9% whiff rate and an elite 29.5% hard-hit rate. We expected Fluharty to be tough on lefties, but the true revelation has been what he’s done to righties. They’re hitting just .091 off of him, with just three hits in 37 trips to the plate. Fluharty has been more than reliable in middle relief, against both righties and lefties, and I’d love to see him continue to get opportunities against tough left-handed hitters in big spots. Brendon Little If I were perfectly honest, Fluharty probably belongs in the same category as Rodríguez, and Brendon Little would slide into the next category with the back-end guys. After getting some solid run in 2024 where he was good but not great, working a 3.74 ERA in 45 2/3 innings, Little was expected to play a big role in 2025’s new-look bullpen. Early on, he’s delivered. He has a 1.61 ERA in 22 1/3 innings pitched and has held opponents to a .173 batting average. He tunnels a curveball and sinker very effectively, with one breaking towards right-handed hitters and the other away, which has led to his ridiculous 52.7% whiff rate and 37% strikeout rate. Little is somewhat prone to hard contact, but it feels like it’s almost impossible for hitters to raise the ball against him, as he’s racked up a 61.7% groundball rate. Little has pitched some huge innings for the Blue Jays, and I feel more than comfortable every time I see him warming up in the bullpen, preparing to face the other team’s best left-handed hitters. Slam the Door This category is simple. Game on the line, a one-run lead to protect, who do I want coming in to pitch? Yimi García Ironically, the two guys I trust most with the game on the line have some inflated numbers early in the season. Yimi García has shown flashes of being as dominant as any pitcher in baseball, with a four-seamer that gets up to 99 mph and a pair of breaking balls that seem to never miss the bottom left quadrant of the strike zone. He is the guy I want coming in to clean up someone else’s mess late in the game, or against the other team’s best hitters because he’s so effective at inducing strikeouts. He has a 30.4% strikeout rate this year, coming almost entirely in high-leverage situations. The 3.32 ERA isn’t as impressive as that of many of the other elite relievers in the game, but García has thrown just 19 innings so far this season, and it’s really only a couple of tough outings that have brought that number up. Jeff Hoffman Finally, my most trusted reliever in the Blue Jays bullpen is the closer, Jeff Hoffman. Similar to García, Hoffman’s numbers are inflated due to a few poor outings in which he got hit around. His 5.48 ERA is quite cringeworthy, but his leash is still pretty long before I worry about the team demoting him from his role as the closer. Hoffman differs from many relievers because he offers a legitimate four-pitch mix, which can feel like an embarrassment of riches when he blows a high-90s four-seamer by a hitter and follows it up with an elite slider and hard splitter. The Jays have felt his slip-ups harder than anyone else’s this year, as they typically result in being the difference between a win and a loss, but there’s not a pitcher on the staff that offers Hoffman’s combination of pure stuff and command, and not a pitcher on the staff I want in the biggest spot of a game more than him. View full article

Anthony Santander hit a bomb, Chris Bassitt held his own, and the Blue Jays shut out the Padres 3-0. It's the kind of clean win against a good team the Jays need a lot more of in 2025. View full video

It’s hard to believe that we’re already talking this way, but we’re now more than a quarter of the way through the 2025 MLB season. After 46 games, the Blue Jays are 22-24, two games below .500. There have been a number of high points, including sweeps of the Nationals and first-place Mariners, but extended stretches of poor play, including losing eight of their last 10 to finish April, have made it feel like every time the Blue Jays take a step forward, a step backward is coming next. We can look at this in one of two ways. On the positive side, despite having yet to play their best baseball, the Jays have managed to keep their heads above water and find themselves half a game back of the Boston Red Sox for second place in the AL East. The Blue Jays are still in a position to have an extremely successful regular season and are firmly in the Wild Card race despite Anthony Santander's 64 wRC+ and -0.7 fWAR, some massive questions regarding starting rotation depth, injuries to key bullpen arms, and perhaps most notably, starting the season as the worst home run-hitting team in baseball. Instead of allowing all of these issues to compound and fester, the Jays have done well to pick up some important wins early in the season. On the other hand, we can look at this season so far and recognize that the Blue Jays are underperforming relative to their own expectations. According to Spotrac, they have the fifth highest payroll in MLB at over $246 million. All four teams above them in payroll are in first or second place in their division and well above .500, while the Blue Jays sit a couple of games under. The expectation among teams with payrolls well in excess of $200 million is not to hover around .500 and fight for Wild Card spots. It’s to coast to 90 wins and compete for a division title. The Jays have essentially been operating with a four-man rotation since Max Scherzer went down with thumb soreness three innings into his first start of the year, and while Easton Lucas, Eric Lauer, and bullpen days have looked like effective stopgaps at times, one more long-term injury could see the lack of starting pitching depth topple this season like a house of cards on a windy day. With Jake Bloss recently going down with season-ending UCL surgery, the Blue Jays are going to have to continue to rely on guys like Lucas and Lauer followed by a parade of bullpen arms to get through innings every fifth day, at least until Spencer Turnbull is built up or one of Alek Manoah or Scherzer is healthy enough to pitch in the big leagues. Position players like Alan Roden, Davis Schneider, and Will Wagner that made the Opening Day roster and were expected to play key roles in the offense have since been sent down to Triple A, and while names like Addison Barger, Nathan Lukes and Myles Straw have been able to step up and contribute in some big spots, the lineup is still clearly a bat or two short of being truly dangerous. The Blue Jays are far from being a juggernaut, but if we look around at their competition in the American League, they’re surrounded by a dozen other imperfect teams. There are playoff spots up for grabs, and teams that have obvious holes are going to fill them. The margins in the American League this year are as tight as ever, with 10 teams within five games of a Wild Card spot as of Monday. The difference in the American League playoff race is very likely going to boil down to which teams can do the best job of filling holes at the trade deadline to set themselves apart from the rest of the AL mediocrity. This is why it’s so important that the Blue Jays find a way to solidify themselves as an above .500 team, rather than float around the mark as they’ve done so far in 2025. They need to prove to the front office and ownership that they should continue to invest in the major league roster. The appetite to pour resources into the team, whether that be prospect capital, money, or both, will be a lot higher if the Jays can prove they’re an above .500 team than if they continue to sputter every time they string a few wins together. In Blue Jays land, the example always floats around that in 2015, the Jays were 50-51 after 101 games. Then, they got a boost from a historic trade deadline that saw David Price and Troy Tulowitzki join the team. Toronto finished the season on a 43-18 run and won a division title. Is a trade deadline like that possible for this year’s Blue Jays team? Sure, but with so many teams in the hunt for playoff spots, fewer will be out of the race by the deadline and willing to part with impact players in favour of prospects, something the Jays aren’t exactly overflowing with anyway. The other key difference between the 2015 team and this year’s Jays is that the 2015 club paired its 50-51 record with a +94 run differential. Already at a -28 run differential this season, the Jays are unlikely to put up a similar number and convince the front office that they’re a sleeping giant worthy of an all-in style trade deadline, meaning their record is going to have to speak for itself. If they are five games above .500 at the deadline, rather than a game or two below, that could end up making the difference as to whether or not the Jays pull the trigger on a trade that would add a big bat to the lineup or an ace to the rotation. Being above .500 by the end of July would all but guarantee an aggressive deadline for the Jays, whereas being below the mark would likely lead to a second straight year of a disappointing sell-off of pending free agents, or worse, standing pat and hoping the team can go on a run as is. A quarter of the way through the season, this team has proven itself to be good, but the Jays are going to need external help if they want to take the leap from good to great. The only way they’re going to be able to do that is if this group of players is able to bear down and prove to the front office that they’re worth parting ways with prospects for more big league talent. View full article

Let's rant about the Blue Jays' 5-4 Loss to the Tigers on Friday night. Bowden Francis is still allowing too many home runs and while Daulton Varsho and Bo Bichette contributed homers of their own, it wasn't enough to counteract the Jays' pitching staff. View full video