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. It's been a trying opening month for the Blue Jays as they dropped two out of three in both Milwaukee and Arizona this week. Saturday's late defeat to the Diamondbacks marked their sixth consecutive series loss, which hadn't happened since 2012. They once again failed to make it through the week without someone getting hurt, as Daulton Varsho departed Friday with discomfort in the quad/knee area, although it was decided medical imaging wasn't necessary. The bats continued to be ice-cold before cathartically waking up on Sunday, as an eight-run first inning helped them avoid getting swept in the desert. Anaheim will be the last stop on the Jays' three-city road trip this week before they return home to face the Guardians on the weekend. Pitching 3. Louis Varland: Joey Ortiz Strikeout, Bot 9, 4/14 (+9.9% wPA) Louis Varland's tightrope act on Tuesday night reignited talks about who should be closing games for the Blue Jays. After Jeff Hoffman walked Garrett Mitchell to load the bases and place the winning run just 90 feet away, Varland came in and struck out Joey Ortiz on three pitches, blowing him away with a 99-mph fastball up and in to send the game to extras. The series opener against the Brewers contained many twists and turns, with nine total runs being scored in the ninth and 10th innings, but it was Varland slamming the door that paved the way for the offense to come through in the next frame. 2. Jeff Hoffman: Gary Sanchez Strikeout, Bot 9, 4/14 (+9.9% wPA) Even after he gave up a run and put the tying run in scoring position on Tuesday, Hoffman put himself in a good position to hang onto the lead after striking out Gary Sanchez with a fastball perfectly positioned above the belt. According to Statcast, the Blue Jays had a 75% chance of winning after this play, but the next three batters reached before Varland was called upon to get the final out. In addition to blowing this save opportunity, Hoffman gave up a tiebreaking grand slam to Corbin Carroll in the eighth inning on Saturday. 1. Max Scherzer: Lourdes Gurriel Jr. Strikeout, Bot 4, 4/18 (+9.9% wPA) It's not usual that a strikeout in the fourth inning of a tie game stands as the most pivotal play in an entire week for a pitching staff, but this Max Scherzer strikeout became a big win probability swing for Toronto, as Tyler Heineman was credited with a caught stealing on the play after former Blue Jay Lourdes Gurriel Jr. interfered with his throw to second base. Geraldo Perdomo beat the throw, but the Jays successfully challenged for interference on the part of Gurriel to turn it into a double play. Props to the video department. Hitting 3. Myles Straw: 2-RBI Double, Top 10, 4/14 (+24.5% wPA) It was quite the week at the plate for Myles Straw, who cashed in the eventual winning run on Tuesday with this laser down the left field line before homering on Friday in Arizona. The Blue Jays had already plated one in the inning, but a one-run lead isn't often safe with the extra innings ghost runner. Straw turned on an inner-half fastball from sidearm reliever Grant Anderson and lined it into the corner for some key insurance runs on the way to a series-opening win over the Brewers. 2. Vladimir Guerrero Jr.: RBI Double, Top 10, 4/14 (+28.7% wPA) Vladimir Guerrero Jr. was the one who initially broke that scoreless tie in the 10th, scoring Ernie Clement from second on a screeching 111-mph liner off the base of the wall in left-center field. Guerrero has been seeing a lot of good breaking balls early in the season after his postseason tirade, but he can make anyone pay for hanging a sweeper like this. He would experience some frustration later in this series, failing to come through in multiple key spots during the Blue Jays' consecutive 2-1 losses to the Brewers on Wednesday and Thursday, but this was his most crucial hit in what was a productive week overall. 1. Davis Schneider: Ground-Rule Double, Top 9, 4/14 (+33.8% wPA) The latest Clutch Play of the Week was brought to you by Davis Schneider, who drilled a fastball over the center-field wall on a bounce for a double. Plays like these give a proper glimpse into how win probability works: Kazuma Okamoto's game-tying single, Andrés Giménez's go-ahead RBI groundout, and Ernie Clement's RBI single drove in the runs that actually flipped the scoreboard in the ninth, but it was Schneider's hit that went down as the most pivotal one in that sequence because it put the go-ahead run in scoring position with nobody out. 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: Offense Despite a couple of isolated positive efforts recently, the Jays' offense has been an unfortunate combination of injured and bad this year. They're still the standard of the league when it comes to making contact, and they're still hitting a ton of line drives. They have a bottom-three chase rate in MLB, but their bottom-10 chase rate last year wasn't much better. The balls in play just haven't been as threatening: They have the fourth-worst barrel%, fifth-worst hard hit%, and third-worst average exit velocity. Last year got better as it progressed, but on the season, they were merely average to decent in these categories. There have been some clear team-wide mechanical differences at the plate. These don't lie so much with how fast they're swinging, but rather their inability to make their contact useful. They're bottom-three in both of Statcast's squared-up% and blast% (the latter being squared-up fast swings) after being top 10 in both last year. They pulverized fastballs in October, but in the regular season, their real calling card was spoiling secondaries. This year's Blue Jays haven't been half bad with heaters, but they led the league last year in wOBA, xwOBA, and contact% against breaking balls and off-speed pitches. In 2026, that has turned into a bottom-10 wOBA, although their xwOBA suggests it should be better, and they're still not missing them. In sum, I wouldn't say their underlying process has been terrible, but until the quality improves on their balls in play, they won't score many runs. Louis Varland If you don't like where the Blue Jays are at now, it's hard to imagine where they'd be without Louis Varland, who has been lights-out (0 ER, 16 K, 11 IP). Discourse surrounding the closer position captivated the fanbase after he bailed them out in the 10th inning on Monday in Milwaukee, but they can't afford to confine Varland's role to just one inning with what he's doing. Pitch usage-wise, he's in a very similar spot to when Toronto acquired him from the Twins last year, but he's showing some slightly better shapes across the board. He's added a tick of vertical break to his fastball, proceeded with the more downward changeup he flashed in spring training, and generated more lift and glove-side movement on his low-90s slider. Varland MLB Ranks, 2026 (Among 215 Qualified Relievers) Stat Rank K% 7 K-BB% 11 GB% 25 xFIP 6 Pitching+ 5 per FanGraphs According to the Blue Jays broadcast on Thursday afternoon, Sportsnet's Hazel Mae asked Varland if he felt there was anything specific in his arsenal that made his fastball and curveball play up. I'm paraphrasing here, but he essentially said that regardless of the opponent's strengths and weaknesses, any well-executed pitch is a good one, regardless of the situation. That's a good summary of how things are going for him right now. The stuff is just so good throughout the arsenal, and he can throw strikes too. Daulton Varsho After a tough start, Daulton Varsho has become one of the few bright spots in the lineup, going 10-for-26 with three home runs since the start of the Twins series last weekend. His bat tracking specs are surprisingly way different from last year's excellent but injury-shortened performance: He has lost bat speed but also shortened his swing by a lot (the two are correlated), going from a pull-air approach to an all-fields, line-drive one. Most intriguingly, his strikeout rate is down to 11.9%. His previous career-best is 21.3%. I'm sure that will go up, as he's currently making an unsustainable amount of contact outside the zone, but he's also making more contact in the zone too, which is a more repeatable skill. Varsho Swing Mechanics, 2025 vs. 2026 Year Bat Speed Swing Length Swing Tilt Contact Point (rel. to home plate) Attack Angle Attack Direction 2025 75.6 mph 7.9' 30° -0.8" 13° 4° pull 2026 73.4 mph 7.5' 28° -2.9" 8° 0° MLB Avg. 71.7 mph 7.3' 32° 2.9" 10° 2° pull per Statcast One thing I can't make sense of: Despite flattening out his swing and attack angle, centering his attack direction, and letting the ball travel further, he's... still pulling balls in the air at a remarkable pace. However it's happening, it's working. Varsho has also trimmed his chase rate and is walking at a 10.4% clip, which would tie a career high. As for his throwing arm, which was dangerously weak after shoulder surgery, his maximum and average throw velocities from the outfield are still below-average, but each is up about 7.5 mph compared to last year, a good sign for his health. He's up to a .267 batting average and 132 wRC+ on the year, and is on a pace of about 4.9 fWAR per 650 plate appearances. If that holds, he's going to get paid at season's end. Patrick Corbin Patrick Corbin turned in a fine performance in his second start as a Blue Jay on Thursday at Milwaukee (5.2 IP, 1 ER, 4 H, 6 K, 1 BB) after a rough debut last Friday. In that first outing, his cutter got crushed by righties on the outer half of the plate. That remained the case, but this time, he started the game by relying much more on his four-seamer and managed to avoid giving up early home runs. No stuff model is ever going to write home about it (91 mph, 14" iVB, 9" arm-side HB), but it doesn't seem like the Brewers were expecting it, considering he barely threw it against Minnesota. During his second trip through the order, he quickly reintroduced the cutter as velocity on the fastball dipped into the high-80s. He also pushed his sinker more to righties (38%) than in his first start (22%). It was his slider, though, that gave the Brewers fits all game long. It's nothing more than a slow gyro (79 mph, 0" iVB, 3" glove-side HB), but it was responsible for five of his six strikeouts on the day. It got a 50% chase rate, seven misses on 10 swings, and a 50% called strike plus whiff rate. Overall, I'd expect his usage patterns to change again in his next start. Staying unpredictable and changing things up the more hitters see him is how he'll be effective. Patrick Corbin Slider Whiffs by Location, 2026/04/16 (Statcast) All visuals and figures courtesy of Baseball Savant and FanGraphs. Up to date as of April 17, 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 Blue Jays have quickly been pushed into survival mode in the early portion of April, losing consecutive series to the Dodgers and Twins at home. George Springer is the latest to join a long list of regulars on the IL, fracturing his toe after fouling a ball off his foot on Saturday. Fragments of what made last year's team such a joy to watch were on display in the scrappy finale against L.A. and the relentless offensive showing to open the Minnesota series, but they still couldn't manage to make it a winning homestand. Here are the moments worth building on from another tough week. Pitching 3. Dylan Cease: Freddie Freeman Double Play, Top 1, 4/8 (+9.4% WPA) Wednesday afternoon's contest ended well for the Jays, but it didn't start on the most hopeful note. Dylan Cease fought his command, there was traffic on the bases early, and it momentarily seemed like things would go from bad to worse when Freddie Freeman hit a hanging slider on a line to the right side. Fortunately, it happened to land in Ernie Clement's glove, at which point Kyle Tucker was a deer in the headlights between first and second base. Clement flipped it harmlessly to Vladimir Guerrero Jr. at first to complete the double play, and Cease got out of the jam. 2. Jeff Hoffman: Freddie Freeman Strikeout, Top 9, 4/8 (+12.2% WPA) Freeman found himself up in a big spot again in the ninth with the tying run in scoring position. Ahead in the count 1-2, Jeff Hoffman elevated a fastball and blew it by him. Brandon Valenzuela hung onto the foul tip to put the Blue Jays an out away from snapping their six-game losing streak. The Opening Day home run Hoffman gave up to Shea Langeliers remains the only considerable blemish on his season; he now leads qualified AL relievers with a 48.4% strikeout rate. 1. Jeff Hoffman: Max Muncy Groundout, Top 9, 4/8 (+13.9% WPA) It can be argued that Hoffman pitched in too many high-leverage spots to start 2025, leaving him fatigued down the stretch. With the Jays starting slowly this year, it now feels like there haven't been enough spots where it makes sense to use him. Wednesday was an exception, and he delivered. He didn't make it easy for himself after Tucker and Will Smith reached with one out, but perfectly fielded Max Muncy's tapper back to the mound here to complete the save. Hitting 3. Andrés Giménez: Single, Bot 8, 4/8 (+16.6% WPA) Andrés Giménez fell behind 0-2 to Ben Casparius but sat back on a curveball in the zone and rolled it up the middle for a base hit. The ball wasn't hit hard, so Davis Schneider took third on the play, setting the table for the groundball that would score him and put the Blue Jays ahead for good. It was another big knock for Giménez, who's responsible for the Jays' offense's second and third most pivotal swings of the year so far and four of their top 10. 2. George Springer: RBI Double, Bot 7, 4/8 (+25.2% WPA) After lying dormant for over a week, the bats finally came through in a big spot in Wednesday's comeback win. Jack Dreyer missed up with a slider, and Springer shot it the other way, bouncing it off the top of the right field wall to cut the Dodgers' lead to 3-2. This left a second-and-third situation with just one out for Daulton Varsho, who would tie the game with a single. The Blue Jays squandered a golden run-scoring opportunity in the seventh inning the night before but would not let this one slip by. 1. Brandon Valenzuela: 2-Run HR, Bot 4, 4/10 (+25.4% WPA) An unlikely hero flipped the score as the Jays slugged their way to a 10-4 victory on Friday. A string of doubles and an RBI single by Giménez brought Toronto back to within a run after being down 4-0, and then Valenzuela took a hanging splitter from Simeon Woods Richardson and lined it into the visitor's bullpen for his first big league home run. It was the team's biggest moment in an effort that featured 10 unanswered runs and saw eight of the nine members of the starting lineup record a hit. This one came off the bat at 111 mph, and Valenzuela was rewarded for it, starting at catcher in all three games of the series against the Twins. 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 With the back end of the bullpen set to be a revolving door until the pitching staff is fully healthy, the status of various arms at Triple-A Buffalo should be of prudent short-term interest to the fanbase. LHP Adam Macko has begun his season with four scoreless appearances (5.1 IP) out of the bullpen, striking out six and walking two. Macko has leaned heavily on his fastball, which has averaged 95 mph with 16.3" of iVB. Opponents have managed a .175 xwOBA against it and swung and missed a third of the time. RHP Chase Lee, one of the later spring training cuts, has also been called on for multi-inning appearances out of the bullpen in the early going (4 G, 6.2 IP). He has given up two earned runs and an additional three unearned. Lee, whose walk rate has typically hovered just above 5%, has been fighting his command somewhat, with four free passes issued so far. The zone rate on his sinker was 62% in the majors last year. It has tumbled to 30% so far with Buffalo. Andrés Giménez Andrés Giménez collected three hits during the Dodgers series. On the season, he has been one of the few bright spots offensively, slashing .267/.313/.444, thanks in large part to considerable improvements in contact% (55th to 74th percentile), K% (70th to 90th percentile), and squared-up% (35th to 86th percentile) compared to 2025. He's putting the bat on the ball more often and making more flush contact when he does. His zone contact% usually sits in the low 80s. It's up to 93.4% in 2026. Andrés Giménez Bat Tracking, 2025 vs 2026 Split Bat Speed Fast Swing% Swing Length Contact Point (rel. to home plate) Stance Angle Attack Direction 2025 69.3 7.1% 7.0' 2.2" 10° open 3° oppo 2026 66.8 2.7% 6.9' 0.1" 2° close 5° oppo A quick look at Giménez's swing mechanics shows a drop of more than 2 mph in average bat speed from last year and a fast swing rate of just 2.7%. I feel like this might be a byproduct of something more intentional. Bat speed accelerates throughout the swing, and he's now letting the ball travel farther than usual. In addition, he's more closed in his stance than last year. These two changes have allowed him to use the whole field more and hit for a higher average. Giménez hasn't hit a ball 110 mph since 2021 and has never recorded a hard hit rate better than the 36th percentile in a season, so it seems he's leaning into a contact-focused gameplan. Andrés Giménez stance comparison, April 2025 (left) vs. April 2026 (right) Kevin Gausman Kevin Gausman has been nothing short of electric to watch in his first three starts (2.08 ERA, 17.1 IP). The veteran leads qualified AL starters in strikeout rate (40.7%) and didn't walk his first batter of the season until Tuesday night against the Dodgers. He has made one straightforward adjustment in 2026: The splitter is now his primary pitch to both lefties and righties, although it's very close to an even 50/50 with the four-seamer against righties so far. This is the most frequently he has thrown it in his career. Kevin Gausman career pitch usage by season (Statcast) Gausman has very slightly raised his vertical release point to its highest average since 2022. This has helped the splitter play up, as it has a more north-south profile than we've come to expect. More drop, less arm-side tail, and more vertical separation from his fastball, which has averaged roughly an inch more of iVB than 2025. This results in more uncompetitive swings from hitters who are sitting on the heater. The splitter has dumbfounded righties this season, who are striking out in 50% of their plate appearances against him. Kevin Gausman Splitter Specs, 2025 vs. 2026 Year MPH iVB Arm-side HB Vert. Release 2025 84.9 4.5" 15.5" 5.6' 2026 84.2 2.9" 13.8" 5.8' Kazuma Okamoto His first couple of weeks in the big leagues have tested Kazuma Okamoto (.239/.314/.391, 109 wRC+). Everything the Jays thought about his ceiling is still intact, if not better than expected: He has a 75th-percentile barrel rate (11.5%), 71st-percentile bat speed (73.4 MPH), 91st-percentile xwOBACON (.482), and he hit a 420-foot home run to the opposite field against the A's last weekend. The trouble has been getting bat to ball. He's striking out nearly 30% of the time and making contact in the zone only 77% of the time. The recurring question about hitters coming over from NPB is how they'll handle high velocity because it isn't as prevalent in Japan. Okamoto hasn't had much trouble there, but is running a swing-and-miss rate over 50% on secondaries. My hunch is this trend will reverse course for the better soon enough. Swinging and missing wasn't a part of his game with the Yomiuri Giants, so hopefully it's merely a part of the adjustment period. Okamoto seems to be pressing when he's up in big spots, which would only support that theory. I do wonder if the Jays will try to optimize his swing to reduce strikeout probability: His bat path is flat, but he has a high attack angle and a shallow contact point, indicating he's trying to be early and lift the ball. A 6° attack direction to the pull side is also consistent with the early reports that he's a pull-air guy. He does have one of the longest swings in the game at 7.9 feet, and he doesn't really shorten up with two strikes either. If he can find a way to decrease his margin for error without losing bat speed, results should soon follow. All visuals and figures courtesy of Baseball Savant and FanGraphs. Up to date as of April 9, 2026. View full article

One of the Blue Jays' greatest strengths last year was their ability to come through when it mattered with the bats. Getting runners on base and bringing them in are two very important and very distinct parts of hitting, but in 2025, the Jays' tendency to do both at a high frequency was a breath of fresh air compared to 2023 and 2024, when their offense was prone to looking lifeless. A mere 11 games into 2026, they own a 4-7 record (before play on April 8) and have gone from fourth in the league to 26th in runs scored per game. It shouldn't come as much of a surprise, then, that their situational hitting has gotten worse. For how crucial it is to consistent production, success, and failure, for that matter, performance with runners in scoring position, at both the hitter and team level, is noisy, unpredictable, and thus not that stable year over year. Regression happens both ways, and it's happening to the Blue Jays in a big way right now. Blue Jays Hitting w/RISP, 2025 vs. 2026 Year AVG MLB AVG Rank wRC+ MLB wRC+ Rank 2025 .292 1 122 2 2026 .213 26 77 26 Forgive me if you've heard this a lot lately, but it's still early days. We're about 7% of the way through the season so far, a sample small enough for these numbers to work themselves out over time. Only, I'm not so sure they will if the Jays don't adjust their game plan in these spots. They have been a far cry from their best selves when key run-scoring chances arise, and if some of the current trends we're seeing were to continue for the rest of the season, it'll be a year to forget. The Jays overhauled their offensive coaching staff going into last year. The trio of David Popkins, Lou Iannotti, and Hunter Mense (the latter is now with the Giants) helped a lineup that was already great at getting bat to ball to hit with more power. Our own Jesse Burrill recently highlighted the positive changes that occurred under their watch: The hitters started swinging faster, adding more bat speed as the year went on, and doing damage. Jesse also rightfully made note of what has changed this year, namely their lack of discipline. At the time of his writing, the Blue Jays had the league's third-worst chase rate. It goes deeper than that, though. Toronto's coaches obviously aren't telling the hitters to swing out of their shoes, least of all when runners are on base, but the complete abandonment of a sound approach up and down the lineup when they need it most has been worrisome. Blue Jays Hitting w/RISP, 2025 vs. 2026: Underlying Metrics Hitter 2025 K% 2025 Chase% 2025 Hard-Hit% 2026 K% 2026 Chase% 2026 Hard-Hit% George Springer 22.5% 22.9% 50.0% 31.6% 40.5% 30.0% Addison Barger 21.2% 32.7% 55.8% 0.0% 44.0% 33.3% Nathan Lukes 15.3% 35.6% 32.2% 25.0% 55.2% 16.7% Daulton Varsho 33.3% 33.6% 54.3% 12.5% 29.4% 25.0% This is a somewhat arbitrary sample of hitters who were all given the spotlight here for various reasons. They are not solely responsible for the team's futility with runners in scoring position, but combined, they are 4-for-33 in these spots. That's a batting average of .121! I highlighted the chase% columns because that's what's most alarming: Springer has nearly doubled his chase rate from 2025 with RISP. To put it mildly, Lukes and Barger haven't seen the ball well either. Varsho's at least getting bat on ball and not chasing as much, but the contact he has made has been less threatening. Right in the middle of all this has been Kazuma Okamoto. He's clearly a very talented hitter – a 420-foot opposite field home run on opening weekend made that clear – and his .262/.340/.429 slash line (127 wRC+) would be a delight to the fanbase if he could make it last. However, he has looked completely lost in high-leverage situations. Adjusting to the quality of competition in MLB is a challenge for hitters coming from NPB, but adjusting mentally looks to be just as crucial of a task for Okamoto. Whatever's going on between his ears when he steps up with RISP is holding him back. Kazuma Okamoto Splits, 2026 Split AB AVG SLG xBA Zone Swing% Chase% Contact% K% w/RISP 10 .100 .100 .103 58.3% 24.1% 57.1% 54.5% Total 42 .262 .429 .246 60.2% 26.9% 62.1% 40.4% This explains why he's dead-last among Blue Jays with at least 20 plate appearances in win probability added, per FanGraphs' model (-0.51). In run-scoring at-bats, ones that can dramatically swing a team's chances of winning, he has yet to come through. It's presumably not the kind of thing the Blue Jays are worried about long-term, but it's nonetheless evidence that the transition from overseas is anything but linear. If we expand our focus to at-bats with runners on base instead of only in scoring position, other problems start to reveal themselves. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is hitting over .300 in those situations, but only has one extra-base hit. The sample is even smaller for Alejandro Kirk, but he was just 1-for-8 himself before hitting the IL. Rival fanbases may scoff at this, and they're perfectly within their right because this happens to every team, but it is worth noting that the Blue Jays are especially banged up for how early it is in the season. Kirk's fractured thumb and Barger's ankle sprain have complicated matters, and that's just on the position player side. Cody Ponce suffered a regular season-ending ACL injury just 10 batters into his Jays debut, Max Scherzer is trying to pitch through forearm tendinitis, and virtually the entire team was rocked by a nasty flu bug last week. Bo Bichette's knee injury last September was the only major ailment suffered by a Toronto position player in 2025. Due to the circumstances, some players are punching a little above their weight in terms of playing time. Simultaneously, it's clear that this isn't the only problem. I also want to talk about how the Jays have been doing with the bases loaded this year. I'll admit it was my main inspiration for this piece, because any time a team is on pace to enter the record books for something, it's worth following. After Tuesday night's defeat, the 2026 Toronto Blue Jays were 1-for-17 on the season with the bases loaded. That would be, by a country mile, the lowest batting average (.059) a team has ever had with the bases loaded in any season of the live-ball era. The 2020 Kansas City Royals (.122) currently bear this dubious distinction. For seasons that lasted a full 162 games, it's the 2012 Houston Astros (.130). If you look up what their record was that year, it's possible that your electronic device will spontaneously catch fire. MLB's 10 worst bases-loaded offenses, live-ball era (Stathead) Obviously, I doubt Toronto's .059 BA holds up, but it's an unsettling sign that things aren't going great in general. Last year's Blue Jays hit .386 with the bases loaded. That led the league, but as I mentioned before, noisy stats like this don't necessarily stand the test of time. Yet, their xBA of .324 with the bases loaded also led the league, suggesting that in a vacuum, it was no fluke. In 2025, this team was perfectly capable of focusing on the task at hand, not diverting from their approach, and putting together good at-bats with runners in scoring position. In 2026, that has vanished into thin air. It's easier said than done, but whether it's a few hitters trying too hard or small-sample weirdness (likely a combination of both), it seems the offense is in need of a collective re-focus on what made them successful in the first place. It's one of the biggest tangible changes we can see so far between the two seasons, and a main culprit for their subpar performance out of the gate. They've got their work cut out for them now. All stats entering play on April 8, 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. There are still 153 games left, and most of the AL East has fallen on hard times as well, but it felt like a cursed week for the Blue Jays. After putting themselves in a good position to pounce on the soft early portion of the schedule by sweeping the Athletics, they followed it up by dropping two of three to the Rockies and getting swept by the Chicago White Sox. They scored three runs per game across the two series. Cody Ponce and Alejandro Kirk were placed on the IL, Brendon Little was optioned to Triple A, and Addison Barger was removed from Sunday's game after injuring himself trying to leg out an infield hit. They head into a World Series rematch with the Dodgers at 4-5. Here are some of the lone bright spots from the past week. Pitching 3. Tyler Rogers: Miguel Vargas Force Out, Bot 9, 4/3 (+11.4% WPA) With the winning run on base in the bottom of the ninth during Friday's opener in Chicago, Tyler Rogers elected to intentionally walk the slugging Munetaka Murakami and take his chances with Miguel Vargas instead. It ended up being a wise move, as he got a second-pitch groundout to third. All Kazuma Okamoto had to do was step on the bag to send the game to extras. 2. Mason Fluharty: Ezequiel Tovar Strikeout, Top 8, 4/1 (+14.3% WPA) After the Rockies scored the tying run in the eighth against Tommy Nance, Mason Fluharty was in a tough spot with the go-ahead run 90 feet away and just one out. He got Ezequiel Tovar here on three pitches and struck out Ryan Ritter immediately after, walking the tightrope out of danger for the Blue Jays to keep the rubber match of the series tied and send it to the bottom of the eighth. 1. Jeff Hoffman: Austin Hays Strikeout, Top 10, 4/3 (+25.5% WPA) Lost in the painful ending to Friday afternoon's game was this slider that Jeff Hoffman curled just below the inside corner to strike out Austin Hays with the tying run on third. It put the Blue Jays on the doorstep of a come-from-behind win that would've spoiled the belated opening day festivities at Rate Field. Their win probability was 83.1% immediately after this pitch, but the White Sox were victorious just two batters later. Hitting 3. Vladimir Guerrero Jr.: 2-run HR, Top 6, 4/4 (+26.0% WPA) It's a shame how short-lived this was. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. had yet to tap into his power much at all this year until Saturday. He struck out in the first and flew out to the left field wall in the fourth. He got another pitch on the inner half of the zone in the sixth and didn't miss it, launching his first home run and flipping the scoreboard in the process. The ball travelled 437 feet after jumping off his bat at 108.5 mph, a homer in all 30 parks. 2. George Springer: Reached on Error, Top 10, 4/3 (+28.2% WPA) Ernie Clement led off the 10th on Friday by moving the extra-innings runner, Davis Schneider, over to third on a groundout for George Springer. He didn't quite execute that situation the way he wanted, but a double-clutch at third base proved costly for Miguel Vargas, who took Murakami off the bag with his throw to first. Springer was safe after review, and Schneider scored, giving the Blue Jays the lead. 1. Andrés Giménez: 2-run HR, Top 8, 4/3 (+29.3% WPA) Andrés Giménez has delivered when the Blue Jays have needed him on multiple occasions already in the young season. This towering drive off the right field foul pole tied things up at three on Friday afternoon. Giménez ambushed Jordan Leasure, one of the better arms in the White Sox bullpen, on the first pitch after Leasure failed to elevate a 95-mph fastball. Chicago's win probability was 79% even after Ernie Clement's leadoff single right before this home run, which reset the odds to 50/50, enough to make it the most clutch play of the week. 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. Quick Hits: Offense The momentum from a season-opening sweep of the A's ground to a halt on Wednesday. Toronto's offense let plenty of run-scoring opportunities go by in the rubber match against the Rockies, dropping the series to finish their first homestand with a 4-2 record. Two things can be true about this: Yes, failing to cash in against weaker pitching during what's probably going to be the softest part of their schedule all year is not ideal. The Blue Jays scored 45 runs in three games against Colorado last August when they were in mid-season form, and nothing about their at-bats this week suggests they're in midseason form yet. They aren't the only ones struggling, though. The 1-5 Red Sox are averaging less than three runs a game. The 3-3 Mets just scored three runs in as many games in St. Louis. The Dodgers are coming off a series loss to the Guardians at home in which they scored just seven total runs. It's a small sample, but three true outcomes – strikeouts, walks, and home runs – are up across the league, and it may not feel like it after Wednesday's loss, but the Jays still rank top 10 in the league in K%, BB%, and wRC+. The Rockies series wasn't one to be proud of, but this is life over 162. Dylan Cease It's tough to ask for a much better introduction than the one Dylan Cease graced us with on Saturday (5.1 IP, 1 ER, 3 H, 12 K, 2 BB). The fact that he expanded his arsenal throughout the gem has been well-documented. Another thing that stood out to me was a change in his fastball shape. It had more induced vertical break and cutting action, as well as a velocity gain of nearly 2 mph, compared to 2025. He isn't someone who has historically lost velocity as the season goes on either. The result? Four strikeouts with the four-seamer alone, despite him using the slider way more in two-strike counts. Dylan Cease Four-Seam Fastball Specs, 2025 vs. 2026 Year MPH iVB Arm-side HB RPM 2025 97.1 18.5" 3.7" 2,550 2026 98.7 19.7" 2.3" 2,565 The reasons for this are probably weirder than you think. Fans may have noticed a quirk about Cease's delivery: Whenever he was mid-windup during that start against the Athletics, he wasn't looking at the target. In fact, he was gazing off to the third-base side right before release. It sounds crazy, but he learned during spring training that actively looking away from the plate during the early part of his motion added carry to his fastball. Whatever works! Dylan Cease's unconventional windup. Note the direction he's facing. Max Scherzer Is Max Scherzer unable to quit pitching, or is pitching unable to quit him? The future Hall of Famer didn't miss a beat in his first outing despite a slightly abbreviated spring training (6.0 IP, 1 ER, 4 H, 4 K, 1 BB). Nothing was considerably different about his release or usage compared to last year, but like Cease, he flashed a slightly improved four-seam fastball shape. It's virtually identical in terms of velocity, but it averaged 17.4" of iVB on Tuesday, compared to 16.2" last year. PitchingBot, one of two pitch quality models on FanGraphs, still considers Scherzer's fastball an above-average offering. Not many pitchers who have stayed in the show past 40 can claim their fastball declined this gracefully in the latter half of their careers. With Cody Ponce's injury, there's a lot being asked of Scherzer at the moment. He's currently on a schedule that lines up his next three starts as follows: vs. LAD, vs. MIN, @ ARI. For better or worse, he's going to have to eat key innings this month, and in the starts against the Dodgers and Diamondbacks, that might be a tall task. He is not a groundball pitcher, and those are two offenses full of hitters who can hit the ball hard and in the air. There are some games ahead that will be pivotal in determining how the Blue Jays respond to the adversity of having four starters on the IL, and Scherzer will be in the middle of it all. Jesús Sánchez Jesús Sánchez is scorching to start his Blue Jays tenure (.375/.500/.563, 1 HR, 2 K, 2 BB, 20 PA). Mitch Bannon of The Athletic put out a great piece on Thursday morning detailing the changes he has made since getting traded to Toronto. The general sentiment among the coaching staff seems to be that he got away from his true self after being flipped from Miami to Houston at the deadline last year, leading to a prolonged slump down the stretch. The Blue Jays are trying to tell Sanchez to lean into his identity and play to his strengths, rather than cover his weaknesses. Jesús Sánchez bat speed distribution, 2023-2026 (Statcast). What's interesting about the bat speed distribution chart above, though, is that Sánchez, known for his thunderous swing, has been more reserved so far in 2026. The top-end bat speed is still there, but he's choosing to swing slower in way more spots. Breaking it down by count reveals that he's swinging way slower on secondary pitches with two strikes, an early indication that he's developing a more polished approach from behind in the count. Considering he has only struck out twice, it's working. The fact that Sánchez got a start against southpaw Kyle Freeland on Wednesday (while Addison Barger did not), despite Sánchez's career 42 wRC+ vs. LHP, speaks to the trust the Jays have in the newest addition to their offense. It's not exactly unwarranted either. Barger has chased 47.5% of the pitches he has seen outside the zone so far, an astronomical rate that has contributed to his 0-for-13 start. After being asked why he kept Barger out of the lineup Tuesday against a righty, manager John Schneider simply said "Slow down, Addie," according to Toronto's play-by-play team on Sportsnet. Until he does, it seems Sánchez will get every opportunity to keep building. All visuals and figures courtesy of Baseball Savant and FanGraphs, effective April 2, 2026. View full article

Welcome to the inaugural edition of 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. Last year's Blue Jays taught us that a slow start to the season isn't the end of the world. Then again, it doesn't hurt to get ahead. Headlined by consecutive nail-biter walk-off wins and punctuated with a record-setting day for the pitching staff on Sunday, the Jays completed a sweep of the Athletics to begin the year 3-0 for the first time since 1996. Their pitchers struck out 50 batters over the course of the series, a modern-era record to start a season. Not a bad way to kick off their 50th anniversary! Pitching 3. Louis Varland: Jacob Wilson GIDP, Top 7, 3/27 (+17.5% wPA) Varland picked up right where he left off in 2025 by pitching in a high-leverage spot. With the tying and go-ahead runs on and nobody out, he struck out Brent Rooker before inducing a perfectly-timed groundball from Jacob Wilson, hit right at second baseman Ernie Clement. The rest was academic. 2. Braydon Fisher: Jacob Wilson GIDP, Top 6, 3/28 (+17.7% wPA) It was a tough weekend for Wilson. Known for his contact skills, he struck out five times in 13 plate appearances, and even when he did put bat on ball, it didn't always end well. After a hard-luck start to the inning that saw the A's finally score on Dylan Cease after his masterful debut, Braydon Fisher came on and got another grounder from the not-Oakland shortstop. It wasn't the easiest double play in the world, but Toronto's dazzling middle infield combination of Giménez and Clement made it happen. 1. Louis Varland: Soderstrom GIDP Top 10 3/28 (+24.1% wPA) It's unfortunate for Varland that Brent Rooker drove in a run immediately after this because as it happened, it looked like the table would be set for the Jays to win it in the 10th. Ultimately, they only had to wait one more inning. After walking the white-hot Shea Langeliers to take away the open base with the ghost runner on in extra innings, Varland got a tailor-made groundball from Soderstrom for an easy 4-6-3. Hitting 3. Ernie Clement: Walk-off single, Bot 11, 3/28 (+29.0% wPA) The final act of Saturday afternoon's thrilling comeback victory came courtesy of Clement, who worked the count full against Luis Medina before turning on a 99-mph fastball and drilling it into the left-center gap. Pinch-runner Nathan Lukes scored the winning run from second with ease to cap off an eventful game that once saw the Jays trailing 6-2 heading to the bottom of the seventh before flipping the script to win 8-7 in extras. 2. Andrés Giménez: Walk-off single, Bot 9, 3/27 (+36.6% wPA) Andrés Giménez was one of many unlikely heroes in last year's playoff run after a lost season at the plate. To say he started off on the right foot in 2026 would be an understatement, as the opening night theatrics would not have come close to happening without him; he drove in all three runs during the 3-2 win. What began as a bases-empty, two-out scenario turned into a masterclass by the bottom of the order: Kazuma Okamoto singled to right, Ernie Clement chopped a double over third baseman Max Muncy's head, and then Giménez finished the job with a hard grounder back up the middle. Maybe being a world champion does make you feel different! 1. Alejandro Kirk: Solo HR, Bot 9, 3/28 (+46.7% wPA) The Blue Jays' first home run of the season could not have come at a better time. Mere seconds after Okamoto let an arguably challengeable pitch go by for strike three, Kirk shocked the Rogers Centre with a no-doubter to left field off A's reliever Michael Kelly to tie it at six with one out in the bottom of the ninth. Toronto's catcher, known for his flat swing, normally likes the ball high in the zone, but it was a sweeper middle-down that he deposited into the seats above the home bullpen. Fun fact: For how often the Jays found a way to win in 2025, this would've been their sixth-most clutch play of the last regular season. It was the most dramatic of swings in a game that saw a whopping six plays that caused at least a 20% swing in win probability. Up next for the Blue Jays: A home series against the Rockies to start the week before three games in Chicago for the White Sox home opener on the weekend. View full article