Matthew Creally

Welcome back to Blue Jays Clutch Plays, a recurring post that highlights the six most pivotal plays (three pitching, three hitting) from the past week of Blue Jays baseball, according to MLB's win probability model. Click here to read last week's edition. The Blue Jays began the week in dire straits, further spiraling from their weekend collapse in Baltimore by stumbling to losses in the first two games of their series in Atlanta. Despite facing Chris Sale on a bullpen day in the series finale, though, they pulled through to avoid the sweep and then took two of three from the Orioles at home over the weekend. After yet another uneven week in which they continued to do just enough to maintain their place in the standings, they're within two games of .500 with the Phillies coming to town on Monday. Pitching 3. Braydon Fisher: Pete Alonso Strikeout, Top 1, 6/6 (+7.7% WPA) Toronto pitchers didn't find themselves in a truly perilous situation once this week, so while none of these plays will necessarily stand out at the end of the season, it gives us a good opportunity to appreciate some moments that would otherwise fall under the radar. Braydon Fisher fanning Pete Alonso in the first inning on Saturday is a great example. After the first two batters reached and moved into scoring position, Fisher got Alonso and then Coby Mayo to navigate through the danger. 2. Connor Seabold: Blaze Alexander Force Out, Top 7, 6/7 (+9.5% WPA) MLB decided not to post a video of this force out that the Jays got on a bunt play, but we promise it happened! It also ended up playing a sizeable role in the Blue Jays escaping the seventh inning en route to the series win on Sunday. The #9 hitter, Blaze Alexander, laid down a bunt with runners on first and second with one out in a one-run game, but it backfired as Brandon Valenzuela was able to force Tyler O'Neill at third. Instead of having a second-and-third situation with one out, runners remained at first and second, which matters because... 1. Tyler Rogers: Taylor Ward GIDP, Top 7, 6/7 (+17.5% WPA) ...Tyler Rogers came in and promptly induced an inning-ending double play. Here, Taylor Ward fell behind 0-2 on a couple of sinkers but laid off a couple of sliders to stay alive. So, Rogers went right back to the bowling-ball sinker, and Ward topped it, spinning it to Ernie Clement at second to start the 4-6-3. Rogers would get two more outs in relief in the eighth as well. Hitting 3. Kazuma Okamoto: 2-run HR, Top 2, 6/2 (+18.2% WPA) This is the one big knock the Jays managed against Bryce Elder in Tuesday night's loss to the Braves. With the runner in motion at first on the payoff pitch, Kazuma Okamoto got a sinker that Elder left a little too high over the outer half of the plate and launched it the other way into the seats in front of Atlanta's signature Chop House to tie the game. 2. Brandon Valenzuela: 2-run HR, Bot 5, 6/5 (+23.4% WPA) Valenzuela has turned into a revelation at catcher. The rookie backstop is on fire with the bat in his hands, and on Friday night, he punished a hanging breaking ball that Brandon Young visibly regretted as soon as it left his hand. Things would unravel soon after this in the only game the Jays lost over the weekend, but Valenzuela is now up to seven home runs after adding a blast on Sunday and leads Toronto position players in fWAR. 1. Ernie Clement: 3-run HR, Bot 3, 6/6 (+26.1% WPA) Clement was in the middle of everything during the Jays' consecutive wins against the Orioles on Saturday and Sunday. He got a hanging breaker himself here from Kyle Bradish, and while he didn't hit it that hard or far, he did what he does best: caught the ball out front and pulled it. Baltimore made it close later on but failed to regain the lead as this homer broke the game open and paved the way for Toronto to tie, and eventually win, the series. View full article

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. Quick Hits: Welcome Back Desperate for anyone who can cover innings, the Blue Jays got the recently-DFA'd Simeon Woods Richardson from the Twins for cash considerations earlier this week. The Jays first acquired Woods Richardson from the Mets in the Marcus Stroman trade and later sent him to Minnesota in the José Berríos trade. He was a serviceable back-end starter in 2025, but 2026 has been an utter disaster for him so far (7.74 ERA, 5.86 xERA, 5.90 xFIP, 0.4% K-BB). SWR returns to the Blue Jays with an over-the-top delivery, a high-carry mid-90s fastball, a mid-to-high 80s splitter, a mid-80s gyro slider, and a show-me two-plane curveball. I wonder if we're going to see Pete Walker and company help him experiment with some things. None of his pitches grade out well according to stuff models, he hasn't missed any bats this year, and his command has faltered lately too. He's only 25, so it's an interesting reclamation project, but opponents are slugging over .600 against the splitter, which he first introduced last year after coming up with a changeup. Neither the slider nor the splitter seems to tunnel well with the fastball, and his old changeup had virtually no separation from the heater in the first place. Whether it's a change in arm angle or repertoire, or he can discover a new pitch grip, here's hoping he can get back on track with Toronto because they need healthy pitchers urgently. Nathan Lukes The beat goes on for Nathan Lukes, whose late-April momentum was not disrupted by the hamstring pull that sent him to the IL. He's slashing .455/.526/.606 since his return, and he hit his first homer of the season on Wednesday in Atlanta. This season, he has shifted his attack direction a couple degrees toward the pull side and moved a touch farther back in the box, and he's catching the ball just a little farther out front in front of his body. This is having a positive effect on his batted ball profile, as he's trading groundballs for line drives and pulling more, especially in the air. Nathan Lukes Batted Ball Profile, 2025-26 Year GB% FB% Pull% Pull Air% 2025 46.7% 23.4% 31.7% 14.2% 2026 41.3% 20.0% 37.3% 22.7% For a guy with elite bat-to-ball and without threatening bat speed or exit velocities, it's imperative to optimize the distribution of batted balls. Lukes's power numbers should see a slight bump with this series of minor adjustments, which makes his sparkling contact and strikeout rates play up even more. In a season where everybody from the Blue Jays' logjam of lefty-hitting outfielders has struggled to truly rise head-and-shoulders above the pack, Lukes is continuing to get it done. Chad Dallas Chad Dallas earned the win in a successful big-league debut during the series finale against the Braves (3.2 IP, 1 ER, 2 H, 2 K, 2 BB). His unique ability to spin the ball was on full display, as 93% of the pitches he threw were cutters, sweepers, and curveballs. The sweeper returned a beautiful 44% swing-and-miss rate, and it was also in the zone more than any of his other pitch types. It averaged 84 mph, 1.8" of drop, and 14.9" of glove-side movement, slightly less cut than we saw with the minor league ball. Still, this combination of drop and glove-side action is hard to find. It's little wonder he threw it 50% of the time to righties. per Baseball Savant To lefties, he leaned on the cutter-curveball combination. He struggled with his cutter command, as its 33% zone rate is more typical for secondary pitches with tons of movement, but it did generate plenty of weak contact. Overall, Dallas induced 11 batted balls, only four of which were hard-hit. An outlier movement profile like this might give him a little more margin for error in terms of location, even though he lacks velocity. Note: The Blue Jays optioned Dallas this afternoon to activate Woods Richardson. Charles McAdoo Charles McAdoo is 3-for-11 with two singles and a homer in his first taste of big league action. Baseball America gave McAdoo 55-grade raw power and 50-grade running, but only a 30-grade hit tool, in their preseason report. As I discussed on the Jays Centre podcast, however, he crept up the Jays' prospect rankings after a strong start to the season that saw him sacrifice some power for a more well-rounded offensive profile. This tradeoff isn't always worth it, but for someone like McAdoo, who had substantial swing-and-miss issues in the minors, it seems like the right move. Charles McAdoo Swing Mechanics, 2026 Bat Speed Swing Length Contact Point vs Center of Mass Stance Angle Attack Angle Attack Direction 71.8 7' 22.7" 14° close 4° 6° oppo His combination of average bat speed with a shorter-than-average swing makes for a more explosive bat than bat speed alone might indicate. By closing himself off and letting the ball travel more than most hitters (league-average contact point is about 6" farther out front than this), he gives himself a better chance to make contact (92.3% zone contact so far). It'll make him more prone to grounders, but more than half of his batted balls have been hard-hit. So far, the adjustment has been worth making. All stats entering June 5, 2026. View full article

June is upon us. The days are at their longest, and it's sort of a sweet spot in the year where we here at Jays Centre no longer have to litter every article with the words "it's still early," but it also isn't quite crunch time either. The Blue Jays have yet to consistently start winning, but the AL is still terrible, the weather in southern Ontario has been nothing short of spectacular, and there's lots to learn about the remainder of the season. Like many of you, I began the month of June by letting out a tremendous cackle after hearing that Louis Varland somehow didn't win Reliever of the Month. Just before that, though, I was checking in on some 365-day leaderboards over at FanGraphs. The calendar turning reminded me that looking at player stats at the season level can be considered arbitrary. It's also worth noting that it has now been a full calendar year since the Jays started to get hot and begin their glorious march to the AL pennant. 365-day leaderboards tell us about the best players in the league over the past year, something that multi-season leaderboards don't quite capture. As I was scanning the batting leaders since June 2 of last year, I found something that I had to stare at for a while just to make sure I was seeing it properly. Before I go any further, I'll emphasize that I'd like to consider myself a rational baseball fan who gathers facts and uses logic, rather than reactive emotion, to form opinions. As such, I've grown to detest things like the blind side-by-side player stat comparisons that are often seen on social media. They lack context and are mostly posted to get a reaction. However, after looking at these leaderboards, I just couldn't resist despite my best efforts. I apologize profusely. Below is a comparison of offensive stats since June 2, 2025, for two position players. Hopefully the Only Blind Player Comparison I Will Ever Share Player GP PA AVG OBP SLG HR wRC+ K% BB% Player A 156 668 .297 .380 .448 18 132 11.8% 11.1% Player B 149 564 .282 .372 .455 17 131 15.1% 12.2% As you likely surmised by the title, one of these guys is Vladimir Guerrero Jr. He is player A. Player B is Spencer Horwitz. I'll be the first to admit this is narrative-ball at its finest. Like I said before, context matters. Guerrero has proven to be an above-average hitter against lefties and righties, but the former Blue Jay Horwitz, a lefty, has historically been pretty bad against left-handed pitching, and while he isn't in a strict platoon role, he doesn't always start when a lefty pitcher is on the mound. Guerrero is also blessed with more physical gifts. He hits the ball very hard and almost never strikes out. His raw talent means he'll likely begin his physical downturn later in his career, and it'll probably be a more graceful decline than Horwitz's. Another aspect of this that's hard to quantify is Guerrero's reputation internationally, especially in his native Dominican Republic. The Blue Jays owe a considerable portion of their fanbase, as well as their status in the eyes of future free agents, to #27. He does more for the organization than you might think just by being here. This is all a long-winded way of saying yes, I'd rather have Vladimir Guerrero Jr. than Spencer Horwitz. But I also don't think I'm crazy to suggest there should be more separation between him and Horwitz in their most recent full-season sample of non-playoff games. According to Spotrac, Guerrero is making a little more than $40M this year, the first season of his record-breaking 14-year, $500M extension. Meanwhile, Horwitz is still a year away from being eligible for arbitration, so he's only making $802K. There is, though, the elephant in the room. The playoffs. As my editor Leo Morgenstern rightfully pointed out to me, if you include the postseason, Guerrero ranks among the top 15 in wOBA and OPS among all MLB hitters over the past 365 days (min. 500 PA). That's what you want out of your franchise cornerstone, plain and simple. Anyone's one-year performance will look worse if you omit their best stretch from consideration, and for him, that came in October. He shouldn't be punished for that, but the fact remains that for an entire year, his regular-season offensive performance has been nearly indistinguishable from the guy he was blocking on the depth chart not too long ago. Why is that the case? Well, Guerrero's worst regular-season stretch of the past year was, by a mile, his most recent: May 2026. As I write this, his pristine .390 OBP exceeds his mind-boggling .387 SLG. Where he has gone astray this year is a perfect encapsulation of the Jays' offensive regression from last year: He's chasing more. The 2025 squad was famous for their ability to get bat on ball, but make no mistake, their true standout quality was hitting for enough power to make that mean something. When you chase more, you're in worse counts. When you're in worse counts, you get less to hit. Vladimir Guerrero Jr.'s Power Outage Is a Byproduct of His Swing Decisions Year Chase% Chase Contact% Early-Count Swing% % Ahead in Count % Behind in Count Hard-Hit% Barrel% 2025 21.5% 61.7% 33.0% 26.1% 31.4% 50.7% 12.2% 2026 31.2% 73.7% 40.7% 22.4% 36.4% 44.2% 6.8% Sure, it would be great if he started lifting the ball all of a sudden, but he's now in his eighth full season in the majors with over 1,000 games of experience. If he hasn't figured out how to push his attack angle above 3° by now, when will it happen? The relative lack of patience is the more prudent issue here. He has managed great seasons with a high groundball rate before. There are many ways to digest this, but the one that makes the most sense to me is that this is all a prime example of how baseball progresses over time. If you look at the same 365-day leaderboard but shifted back one year, from June 2024 to June 2025 instead, Guerrero's 164 wRC+ is third in all of baseball, behind only Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani. He went nuclear in the second half of 2024 for the retooling Jays after a sluggish first month and a half. In any given three-year window, these are simply the ups and downs of the game. Were we wrong to expect so much of Guerrero after his magical October? He has shown that his ceiling is in that range before. 2021. Most of 2024. October 2025. We all know it's in there somewhere, which is what makes his recent struggles frustrating or not as bad as they seem, depending on how you take it. At this point, though it's fun to dream on, I don't think it makes sense to expect he'll ever pair his exit velocities with truly optimal launch angles. He's chasing more than we've ever seen and has proven that can lower his floor, but if a .290 AVG and .390 OBP with no power is what that looks like, it could be worse. The fact that he makes so much contact and hits the ball so hard to all fields means his floor will never be that of a squarely unproductive player over the course of a full season. Baseball reminds us all the time that it moves in waves. Sometimes those reminders are pleasant, and sometimes they aren't. Relatively speaking, Guerrero's monster final two-thirds of 2024 ended up being a peak in between the two valleys of his 2023-into-slow-start-to-2024 and the much less severe 2025 regular season. Similarly, his 2025 postseason was another peak in between the two valleys of the preceding regular season and what he's going through now. If the rough cadence of this cycle continues, he's in for better days not too far from now. The Blue Jays paid him $500M for a lot of reasons. The postseason he gave them was one. The fact that his absolute floor is an above-average hitter is another. Shoutout Spencer Horwitz for not falling too far behind. All stats entering June 3, 2026. View full article

Welcome back to Blue Jays Clutch Plays, a recurring post that highlights the six most pivotal plays (three pitching, three hitting) from the past week of Blue Jays baseball, according to MLB's win probability model. Click here to read last week's edition. The Toronto Blue Jays took two of three from the Miami Marlins to finish off their final homestand of May, but after finally completing the journey back to .500 by taking the first two games of the weekend series in Baltimore, they painfully let one slip away on Saturday and lost a mostly uncompetitive series finale. It was still technically a winning week, but the opportunity was right in front of them to at least remain at .500 with some more distance between themselves and the bottom of the division, and they couldn't take advantage. They have a much-needed day off before a series in Atlanta against the MLB-leading Braves this week. Pitching 3. Yariel Rodríguez: Coby Mayo GIDP, Bot 6, 5/30 (+18.6% WPA) Yariel Rodríguez, who was responsible for the pitching staff's most clutch play of the 2025 regular season, made his first entry onto this season's list by getting a groundball in a key spot. With Toronto clinging to the slimmest of leads and the go-ahead run on base with nobody out, he completely flipped the script of the inning by inducing a 6-4-3 double play on a down-and-away slider. 2. Trey Yesavage: Jeremiah Jackson GIDP, Bot 4, 5/30 (+21.1% WPA) It felt like Trey Yesavage was tapdancing his way out of trouble all afternoon on Saturday. I'm sure he wasn't even thrilled with the location of the pitch that freed him from the fourth inning, but Jeremiah Jackson swatted an elevated slider up the third base line. Kazuma Okamoto turned the unassisted double play to end the frame, and Yesavage would wind up only allowing a single run despite a career-high seven walks. 1. Louis Varland: Connor Norby Strikeout DP, Top 8, 5/27 (+29.4% WPA) The Marlins were running wild in Wednesday's series finale, and what initially seemed like it would be a thorn in the sides of the Blue Jays ended up dooming a brilliant chance that Miami had to come back. With men on the corners and one out against Louis Varland, Connor Norby took a curveball at the top of the zone for strike three. Jakob Marsee took off for second, and if the plan was for that to distract the Jays with Otto Lopez on third, it was not played to perfection. Marsee was hung up following a good throw from Tyler Heineman, Lopez could not score, and the inning was over. The effects of close games are on full display here, as each of the clutch pitching plays from this week is inside the top eight on the season. Hitting 3. Nathan Lukes: RBI Double, Bot 5, 5/27 (+18.3% WPA) I'd be remiss not to mention the extremely long two-out walk Tyler Heineman worked off Michael Petersen to extend the inning and turn the lineup card over for Nathan Lukes, who drilled one up the alley in right-center to score Heineman and tie the game. Lukes's return was a timely shot in the arm for Toronto's lineup; he has hit for a 213 wRC+ since being activated off the IL. 2. Yohendrick Piñango: RBI Single, Bot 5, 5/25 (+18.7% WPA) Unfortunately, this hit preceded a couple of costly Yohendrick Piñango errors in left field that allowed the Marlins to blow the doors off the series opener last Monday, but at the time, he was the only one who came through with an RBI after the Jays stacked baserunners early against Janson Junk. Down in the count, Piñango got to an inside fastball from Junk and took it right back up the middle to put his team on the board. 1. Vladimir Guerrero Jr.: 2-RBI Double, Top 8, 5/29 (+34.2% WPA) Vladimir Guerrero Jr.'s biggest hit of the season put the Blue Jays in as good a position as they'd been in since the opening weekend sweep of the A's. After Kazuma Okamoto and Charles McAdoo homered in the seventh inning to make the game close, Vlad Jr. yanked a sinker down the left field line to score both baserunners and put Toronto on top in the 8th. The Jays continue to own Yennier Cano, who has given up eight earned runs in 5.2 innings against them since the start of last year. This was Guerrero's most impactful hit by WPA since his tiebreaking solo shot in the 7th inning of a rubber match against the Cubs in August 2025. View full article

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. Quick Hits: Roster Shuffle The periphery of the Jays' roster is going to look a little different this weekend in Baltimore. The team announced Wednesday afternoon they'd traded for old friend Connor Seabold, who was recently DFA'd by the Tigers. Seabold, a right-handed pitcher, was with Toronto in spring training and has spent the past two years as a single-inning reliever but is capable of starting as well. In 11 appearances spanning 15.2 innings for Detroit, he was working on a 3.45 ERA, 20.3% K rate, and 7.2% BB rate, allowing two homers before getting cut loose. With Dylan Cease hitting the IL, the Jays needed another arm who can eat multiple innings as a spot starter/bulk reliever. Seabold figures to factor into their pitching plans this weekend. Later Wednesday evening, Jeff Passan reported that the Blue Jays were going to call up Charles McAdoo from Triple-A Buffalo. The team made the move official on Thursday afternoon. McAdoo was ranked by Baseball America as Toronto's 24th-best prospect before the season but got bumped up to 19th in their first midseason revision after a strong start in Buffalo (.250/.356/.436). He had plus raw power coming into the year and stole a career-high 34 bases in 2025, but BA gave his hit tool an underwhelming 30 grade in their preseason report. While he knows how to lay off pitches out of the zone, his approach borders on being too passive. However, he struck out less than 20% of the time at Buffalo this year, and his zone contact rate was up to 89.3%. McAdoo is a natural third baseman who can play first and has started to get game reps at second base this year. Kevin Gausman Kevin Gausman threw a season-high 19.1% sliders two starts ago against the Pirates. He mentioned to Jays broadcasters in an in-game interview a couple of days later that he'd been fighting a lack of feel for his splitter, although Pittsburgh isn't a good slider-hitting team, so it was a defensible adjustment from a game-planning standpoint as well. It worked, as he pitched into the seventh and also recorded a season-high 39% swing-and-miss rate. Wednesday's start against the Marlins was different as he dialed his fastball usage up to 62.1%, good for second-highest in a single game this year, but he was fighting himself the whole time. His first batter of the game, Xavier Edwards, worked a 10-pitch double, which would become a common theme throughout the afternoon. Just five days after setting that new season-high, Gausman had a single-game low on the swing-and-miss front. Miami put a ton of balls in play, spoiled pitches, and Gausman battled his command about as much as we've seen. Despite all that, he earned a hard-fought no-decision (5 IP, 1 ER, 6 H, 5 K, 2 BB, 95 P), inducing a couple of key double plays and getting out of multiple jams. For a pitching staff as shorthanded as Toronto's right now, Gausman powering through on Wednesday and completing that fifth inning was crucial. Jesús Sánchez Jesús Sánchez's 136 wRC+ in May (entering play on May 28) is second only to Brandon Valenzuela among Blue Jay hitters. His SLG on the season is up to .456 after his big weekend against the Pirates and the grand slam he hit off former teammate Sandy Alcantara on Tuesday. I gave Sánchez a spot in this column a few weeks ago, noting he was tied for the largest year-over-year decline in the majors in bat speed at the time. Good news: He's swinging harder this month. His average bat speed is up 1.5 mph in May compared to April, and he's doing a better job of catching up to fastballs in particular. The glass-half-empty prognosis of Sánchez's performance is that his hard-hit rate is down nearly 10% from April, his chase rate is up over 40% for the month of May, and his zone contact rate is down below 80% this month too. His walk rate on the season is a minuscule 4%, and while he's hitting plenty of line drives, which appears to be intentional, his May BABIP is an inflated .408, and he's outperforming his xwOBA by about 40 points. It's nice to see the bat speed rebounding, and the extra-base hits he's been bringing lately have been much needed, but I can't foresee him sustaining a 136 wRC+ if he continues to swing this much. Spencer Miles Spencer Miles has easily been this team's feel-good story of the year so far. When the Jays took him in the Rule 5 draft, he had never pitched above A-ball or thrown more than 7.1 innings in a season since his senior year at Missouri, thanks to a checkered injury history. Considering all that, concerns about overworking him are always going to be warranted, but as a bulk reliever every fifth day, he has gone above and beyond everything that was expected of him coming in. This month, his ERA is a pristine 1.53 (1.70 FIP, 2.75 xFIP). He's slated to pitch in the Sunday finale of the four-game set against the Orioles opposite Kyle Bradish. Last week at Yankee Stadium (4.1 IP, 0 R, 2 H, 6 K, 1 BB), Miles went sinker-slider-heavy to righties and suffocated lefties with his curveball. To both sides, the curve returned a 55% swing-and-miss rate on the evening. On Tuesday against the Marlins, he threw sinkers to righties 48.3% of the time, a mark he only reached twice prior, and used the sinker and curve in perfect tandem to lefties. Ever since he started getting stretched out, he's been laying off the four-seamer and turning to the sinker as his primary fastball while his curveball and slider play off it. All four of his pitch types grade out as above-average according to PitchingBot's stuff model. He doesn't get much swing and miss but owns a 63rd-percentile K rate because his arsenal lends itself to plenty of called strikes. The curveball is his only offering that isn't running a groundball rate above 55%, and his quality contact suppression is up there with the best in baseball right now. All stats entering May 28, 2026. View full article

Welcome back to Blue Jays Clutch Plays, a recurring post that highlights the six most pivotal plays (three pitching, three hitting) from the past week of Blue Jays baseball, according to MLB's win probability model. Click here to read last week's edition. Just five days ago, the Blue Jays had dropped the first two games of a series at Yankee Stadium and were staring down the barrel of four consecutive games against Cam Schlittler, Carlos Rodón, Bubba Chandler, and Paul Skenes. Naturally, they won all four of those contests, marking their longest winning streak of the season. They had a chance to sweep the Pirates at home and lost the series finale on Sunday, but after salvaging their road trip and taking two out of three on the weekend, they aren't in a bad spot heading into a winnable stretch against the Marlins and Orioles. Here are the biggest moments from the week that was. Pitching 3. Tyler Rogers: Aaron Judge GIDP, Bot 8, 5/21 (+11.0% WPA) Toronto's pitchers had Aaron Judge figured out all series, as the Yankees' hulking slugger went 1-for-15 with eight strikeouts across the four games. In one of Judge's biggest opportunities to make something happen, Tyler Rogers whipped a sinker that dropped below the zone, and Judge rolled it over to the left side in a double play situation. Andrés Giménez positioned himself to field the ball perfectly, and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. made a nice scoop at first base to execute the twin killing and end the frame. 2. Kevin Gausman: Jake Mangum Groundout, Top 7, 5/22 (+11.7% WPA) Kevin Gausman's biggest out of the night happened to come on his last batter. The odds were shifting in favour of the Pirates as the contact-oriented Jake Mangum came to the plate with the tying run on second in a two-run game. Not only did Gausman keep the ball on the ground, but the fact that it was hit to first with the corner infielders drawn in meant that no runs scored on the play. Vlad Jr. stepped on first, paving the way for Mason Fluharty to come in and complete the inning. 1. Louis Varland: Amed Rosario Strikeout, Bot 9, 5/20 (+14.8% WPA) The Jays had to fight for every inch last Wednesday in New York after a lengthy rain delay gave way to an outstanding pitcher's duel between Trey Yesavage and Cam Schlittler. Things didn't come easy in the ninth, as Louis Varland allowed the tying run to get into scoring position before finding himself a strike away from making the save. With Jazz Chisholm Jr. running on the play, Varland got Amed Rosario to make a half-hearted offer at a fastball way above the zone to seal the victory. Hitting 3. Jesús Sánchez: RBI Double, Bot 6, 5/23 (+15.1% WPA) Jesús Sánchez had himself a solid week, as this was the second big double he recorded in a key spot. He had Paul Skenes's number on Saturday, going 2-for-3 against him with two doubles and a 106-mph lineout. Earlier in this at-bat, Sánchez was the benefactor of a fortuitous missed check swing call by the third base umpire, but he didn't hesitate to swing at a 3-2 changeup way below the zone from Skenes, roping it into the right field corner for the go-ahead RBI. 2. Jesús Sánchez: RBI Double, Top 9, 5/18 (+21.8% WPA) As important as it was to take the final two games of the Yankees series and earn the split, the Blue Jays were painfully close to sweeping them, losing each of the first couple games by one and stranding the tying run at third in both contests. The margins were particularly thin in Monday's back-and-forth opener, but things were looking up after Sánchez chopped one over the head of Paul Goldschmidt at first and all the way down the line to score Ernie Clement and bring the Blue Jays to within a run. 1. Ernie Clement: 3-run HR, Top 4, 5/18 (+34.6% WPA) Had Toronto hung on to their earlier lead or completed their ninth-inning comeback attempt, this would've gone down as the Ernie Clement Flu Game. Battling a bad case of strep throat, Ernie found himself in a two-strike, two-out situation with men on the corners and the Jays down by a run. He got a changeup that Ryan Weathers did a decent job locating, but he lofted it to left-center and it carried through the unseasonably hot air all the way over the fence. This was the Jays' fourth-most clutch hit, and Clement's biggest, of the season by WPA, surpassing his walk-off single back on opening weekend. View full article

Even after a two-hour rain delay, there was a sense of predictability around the third game of the Blue Jays-Yankees series last Wednesday night in the Bronx. Cam Schlittler, the MLB leader in ERA and FIP among qualified pitchers, was set to take the hill against a Toronto offense that had slashed a cringeworthy .243/.306/.369 as a unit so far in the month of May. The Jays also left the tying run on third base in each of the first two games of the series. What happened against Schlittler and the Yankees was unsurprising, as they only scored two runs and managed just one extra-base hit. Thanks to Trey Yesavage, it didn't matter. The 22-year-old, in his first start at Yankee Stadium, outdueled Schlittler, going six shutout innings, striking out eight, walking none, and allowing just two hits on 95 pitches. The Blue Jays won 2-1. Yesavage's season started a month late as he recovered from an impingement in his throwing shoulder, but through five starts, his ERA is a sparkling 1.07. He was forecasted by most publicly available projection systems to have an ERA in the mid-to-high 3.00s, which would be perfectly acceptable for a rookie his age but also an indication that the pitcher who set the world on fire last October wouldn't sustain that pace. So far, he has. Rain delays can often throw a wrench into a team's pitching plans. Starters need to follow particular routines and time themselves up to be ready for the first pitch, but when that comes two hours later than expected, it can sometimes put unforeseen limits on their availability that evening. The big story on Wednesday was not only Yesavage's 95 pitches, the second-most he has ever thrown in a major league outing after Game 5 of the World Series, but that his velocity was way up. His fastball sat 95.2 mph, the second-hardest single-game average of his young career, and his slider and splitter were also more than 1.0 mph higher than their season averages. Perhaps he has three cans of Red Bull to thank for that. Until last night, Yesavage had more postseason strikeouts than regular season strikeouts to his name. While his ability to miss bats was on full display against the Yankees, his strikeout rate has slightly fallen back down to earth in 2026. Again, this isn't a cause for concern – it's still in the high 20s, and he was never going to repeat his 35.8% postseason K rate over 20-25 starts. The thing he has done extremely well this year, though, is limit quality contact. Pitchers don't exert much control over how hard opponents hit the ball, but location and launch angle are highly correlated, and Yesavage is hitting the right spots to induce sub-optimal batted ball angles. Trey Yesavage Batted Ball Metrics, 2025 vs 2026 Year GB% PU% Pull Fly Ball% Barrel% BIP% < -3° LA + BIP% > 38° LA 2025 56.4% 0.0% 2.6% 7.7% 43.6% 2026 34.9% 14.3% 1.6% 3.2% 54.0% I like looking at the percentage of batted balls outside that -3° to 38° launch angle range. Not all grounders and fly balls are created equally, and hits outside of that boundary resulted in an average wOBA of less than .300 from 2023 to 2025. It's essentially an adjusted sum of groundball rate and popup rate that only shows the least threatening batted balls possible. Over half of the balls in play that Yesavage has induced this year fall into that category. No one's barreling anything or pulling any fly balls. It's hard to do damage without checking at least one of those boxes. The drop in groundball rate is quite fascinating, but he's compensating for it by running one of the highest popup rates in the league. Splitting his groundballs up by pitch type, there isn't a considerable decrease this year with the splitter or slider: It's mostly happening on the fastball, and it appears to be a direct byproduct of a change in location. Yesavage's fastball averages over 20" of induced vertical break (IVB) thanks to his high release point, so it defies gravity and gives the illusion that it's rising more than almost every four-seamer in the game, meaning hitters are bound to swing under it. In 2026, he's throwing a lot more fastballs down in the zone. Trey Yesavage Fastball Location, 2025 vs 2026 Top left: LHB 2025; top right: RHB 2025; bottom left: LHB 2026; bottom right: RHB 2026 Normally, fastballs with high IVB are more effective when they're elevated because if pitchers aim for a low strike, they run the risk of generating carry upward into the middle of the zone, making them more prone to damage. However, it's working for Yesavage, and I think this is partially a result of hitters being wary of the splitter, which requires steep, uppercut swings to counteract its downward movement. Pitcher List's Anthony Licciardi recently profiled Kevin Gausman's longevity and found that Gausman has sustained success despite also consistently locating his fastball down in the zone. Maybe fastball-splitter pitchers can get away with this kind of approach because hitters on both sides of the plate always have to respect the possibility of seeing a splitter? Fundamentally, not much has changed about Yesavage since he first donned a Blue Jays uniform in September of last year. The sky-high release point is still there. The fastball still carries, and it hasn't lost any velocity since his shoulder injury. The splitter still has plenty of vertical separation from the fastball and induces ugly swings from lefties. The slider still moves the wrong way. His stuff is still electric, he's still missing bats, and now he's becoming a weak contact pitcher too. His development over the past calendar year has become even more remarkable than it already was. The only considerable change we've seen to his profile this year is a decrease in slider usage. He's throwing way more fastballs to righties and more splitters to lefties, with the slider taking a tertiary role to both sides of the plate. As a result, his strikeout rate against righties has nearly doubled compared to last regular season. However, none of this stopped him from reintroducing the slider on Wednesday night. He threw it 27% of the time to Yankee hitters, a single-game high on the young season, and the fact that they chased 70% of the sliders they saw out of the zone suggests they weren't ready for it at all. Trey Yesavage Pitch Usage by Handedness, 2025 vs 2026 Pitch Type 2025 vs LHB 2026 vs LHB 2025 vs RHB 2026 vs RHB FF 50% 44% 39% 51% FS 34% 46% 16% 22% SL 16% 10% 45% 27% As much as I'd rather not pour some cold water on a guy who has been nothing but dominant since he came to the big leagues, especially considering how difficult it is to put a positive spin on the Jays' season right now, there are some things about the way Yesavage's first eight regular season starts have unfolded that seem impossible to continue. He has yet to surrender a non-playoff home run in his career, having induced 27 fly balls that have all stayed in the yard. If he keeps generating this many popups and prevents opponents from getting the barrel to the ball or pulling anything in the air, I don't doubt he'll maintain a low HR/FB% in the long run, but the postseason proved that it's possible to take him deep from time to time. I also don't know how I feel about his command at the moment. On one hand, his walk rate is down from last year, sitting at 7.9% after Wednesday night. On the other, the zone rate on his splitter is down almost 10 points to 34.5%, and command grades from both pitch quality models hosted on FanGraphs suggest the precision of his fastball and his splitter have waned slightly compared to 2025. The splitter is always going to be a chase pitch for him, but pitchers walk a fine line when zone rates on a given offering sink below 35% and they become overly reliant on poor discipline (remember what happened when people stopped swinging against Brendon Little?). Against lefties, his walk rate is only 3.4%, which is probably going to go up if the pitch that he throws 46% of the time against them is out of the zone this much. It can be puzzling when a pitcher's walk rate decreases despite throwing fewer pitches in the zone. It's hard to picture Yesavage's walk rate staying this far below 10% for much longer, but even when he battled his control last year, he got enough strikeouts to make it work, and his stuff is still good enough that it seems like a sustainable combination in the long term. In the 2025 postseason, Yesavage didn't have to steal games for the Blue Jays because of how many runs they scored. This year, the current state of the offense probably means he'll have to pitch in way tighter contests, and early indications suggest he's up to the task. He almost single-handedly won Wednesday night's game for them, and since his MLB debut, his 2.05 FIP leads all starting pitchers with at least 30 innings. He might not pitch like a Cy Young candidate indefinitely, but there's no denying that he has quickly established himself as one of the better starting pitchers in the game. All stats entering May 21, 2026. View full article

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. Quick Hits: Prospects Prospect heads will know that Nolan Perry is already authoring a season to remember. The former 12th-round pick hit the ground running in his return from injury, and his strong start earned him a promotion to High-A Vancouver at the start of May. On Wednesday night, he outdid himself with 10 strikeouts across five shutout innings. In three starts since getting called up, his ERA is a minuscule 0.60, and his strikeout rate is a monstrous 50.9%. Perry, who won Jays Centre's Minor League Starting Pitcher of the Month award for April, boasts a mid-90s fastball that has deceptive carry and a flat approach from a low arm slot. FanGraphs prospect guru Eric Longenhagen said last Friday that he believes Perry could be a top-100 prospect by season's end if he stays healthy. Toronto's pitching pipeline has made some big strides over the past couple of years with the ascension of Trey Yesavage and the consistent growth of Johnny King, who should be headed to Double-A New Hampshire soon. If Perry keeps moving like this, he'll join that group as one of the most valuable young pitchers in the organization. Daulton Varsho Daulton Varsho has gotten hot again, with a walk-off grand slam last week against Tampa, a game-winning hit in the 10th inning in Detroit, and a three-hit night in the Yankees series. The sudden departure from his slug-based pull-air approach that paid massive dividends in a limited sample in 2025 has been a surprise, but it's working. Entering Thursday, his 120 wRC+ nearly matches his 123 wRC+ from last year despite decreases of nearly 3.0 mph in bat speed, 3" in swing length, and 3° in swing tilt. Varsho has never been a successful contact hitter before at the big league level, but he's getting more bat to ball, hitting more line drives, and striking out less than he ever has before. Daulton Varsho, 2026 vs Previous Career Bests Zone Contact% xBA LD% K% 2026 85.1% 0.269 32.8% 19.1% Previous Career High 82.9% 0.245 25.0% 21.3% As our very own Jesse Burrill noted in a recent article, the Jays' lack of slug is frustrating, and they don't exactly need another contact hitter right now, but these changes seem to be a product of Varsho changing his approach based on how he's being pitched. Burrill pointed out that Varsho is seeing fewer pitches down in the zone, especially down and away. The natural plan of attack against a guy with a high attack angle who likes to lift and pull is to pound fastballs at the top of the zone, and Varsho has done well to quickly adjust. Only 11.2% of the pitches he has seen this year have been of the off-speed variety (changeups and splitters, which he has historically crushed). That would be a single-season career low. Tyler Rogers Every time I write about Tyler Rogers, it serves as an important reminder that submarine pitchers with his command simply do not live by the same rules as all other pitchers. So far, he has already appeared in 23 games and has a 1.61 ERA, a first-percentile whiff rate, a 100th-percentile groundball rate, and a 99th-percentile hard-hit rate. Exactly as advertised! A weird quirk has emerged in his statistical profile, though: Hitters have stopped chasing against him. He's walking more than 7% of the batters he's facing for the first time since 2022. Tyler Rogers Chase Rate Breakdown, 2025 vs 2026 Pitch Type 2025 2026 Sinker 27.6% 23.6% Slider 33.3% 25.5% Overall 29.6% 24.3% Overall Percentile 67 9 There are a couple of reasons for this. Most importantly, opposing hitters' zone swing rate against him is down to 67.8% after sitting just above 70% for the past three years, which is likely a testament to his delivery and movement being so confusing that it's easier to decide not to swing at all. Also, the zone rate on his slider is down to 34.7% when it's never been below 45% in a season. Maybe the one-of-a-kind ride-cut shape makes it easier for hitters to lay off compared to his sinker, which falls off the table? He has gone through similar weeks-long stretches of not zoning the slider before, so hopefully it's just small-sample weirdness or a temporary lack of feel. He throws the sinker 77% of the time anyway, so this hasn't affected his overall results much. George Springer George Springer had an entire fanbase scratching their heads when, after jumping out to a 3-0 count in Monday's series opener against the Yankees with the tying run at third base, one out in the ninth, and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. on deck, he swung at three straight splitters out of the zone and struck out. He homered earlier in the game, and the big toe he fractured in early April probably hasn't fully healed yet, so I'm sympathetic to his plight, but the MVP-caliber player we saw last year is nowhere to be found. George Springer Baseball Savant Hitting Summary, 2025 vs 2026 His batting average is down over 100 points, and his OPS is down nearly 400 points from 2025. His sprint speed has also dropped from the 66th to the 31st percentile, so he's clearly still going through it with the toe injury. Like most of the team, he's chasing more and walking less, but in terms of his swing specifically, his average attack angle is down from 13° to 10°, which has led to an 8.5% hike in groundball rate, the same thing that plagued him in 2024. His pull rate is also up around 8%, so he's not timing his swing optimally such that the sweet spot of the bat is travelling upward at contact. As a result, he's rolling over everything to the left side of the infield. It's not wise to jump to early conclusions about a guy who isn't 100%, but if the Jays were otherwise healthy, they'd probably be able to afford the 36-year-old more time to get right. All stats entering May 21, 2026. View full article