Matthew Creally

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 When Eric Lauer was designated for assignment on Monday, Yariel Rodríguez was recalled to take his spot on the active roster. The immediate plan for that fifth spot in the rotation seems to be a piggyback situation with Spencer Miles and Rodríguez, but John Schneider also mentioned CJ Van Eyk and Chad Dallas, two starters with the Buffalo Bisons, as internal candidates to fill the role. Van Eyk, 27, is a former second-round pick from the 2020 draft. The righty has a 3.13 ERA through seven starts in Triple A so far. He has a 30° arm angle and sits 93 mph with his four-seamer. He makes use of seven different pitch types, with a low-80s two-plane curveball standing out from a results standpoint in 2026 (.163 xwOBA, 43.5% swing and miss). To lefties, he has been throwing his four-seam, curveball, cutter, and changeup each between 19% and 28% of the time. To righties, his approach centers around his cutter and curveball, with a sinker and sweeper as secondaries. He'll also mix in the odd gyro slider. Van Eyk is an arsenal-over-stuff guy who won't blow anyone away but thrives as a called-strike machine. Dallas, 25, was taken in the fourth round in 2021 and recently returned from an elbow injury that sidelined him for the entire 2025 season. This year, he has a 3.60 ERA in seven appearances (six starts) for Buffalo. He has a more over-the-top delivery and a very unique profile. Like Van Eyk, his fastball sits around 93 mph, but his calling card is a monstrous sweeper that generates around 17" of glove-side action, a rarity for someone with a higher-than-average arm angle. From a stuff perspective, his 12-6 curveball and low-90s cutter are also plus pitches that are instrumental to his strategy against lefties. In 2026, he's using the sweeper 44% of the time to righties. Dylan Cease Toronto's big signing from the offseason is on a heater, going seven innings in each of his past two starts after going that distance only twice last year. It appears the Blue Jays are making good on their vow to help Dylan Cease add to his repertoire, and it's paying off in a big way. Last Friday (7 IP, 0 ER, 5 H, 10 K, 0 BB), he put the Angels in a blender by coming out with distinct approaches each time through the order. In the early innings, he frequently called upon his changeup and sinker to supplement the primary fastball-slider combo. The second time through, his slider usage shot up to 45%, giving the Angels a healthy dose of spin before he hit the gas in the later innings. His four-seam usage was up to 43% his third time through, averaging 99 mph in the seventh inning as he moved back off his slider, using it and the knuckle curve on a near-interchangeable basis. On Wednesday against the Rays (7 IP, 1 ER, 3 H, 9 K, 3 BB), Cease used his four-seamer just 30% of the time against lefties, his lowest single-game mark of the season so far. Instead, he pushed his knuckle curve and sinker in those matchups more than he has all season. Overall, his walk rate is still hovering around 10%, but we're seeing in real time just how unhittable a starter becomes when he combines nasty stuff with a polished arsenal. Cease's 2.2 fWAR now ranks second among all qualified starting pitchers. This is a Cy Young frontrunner. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hasn't recorded an extra-base hit since he doubled on April 28 against Boston, a career-long drought. His .381 OBP is now outpacing his .372 SLG, and he's slashing just .116/.235/.116 in the month of May. It's hard to feel optimistic about the offense when he's hitting like this. When he has struggled in the past, he has usually underperformed his expected numbers thanks to an inconsistent ability to lift the ball. Not only is he not lifting this year, but his 55th-percentile hard hit rate would be his lowest since his rookie year in 2019. Besides that, he has never finished a season with a hard-hit rate worse than the 89th percentile. Part of the reason this is happening is that he's chasing more. Last year, Guerrero showed the best plate discipline of his career, swinging at only 21.5% of pitches outside the zone. This year, that number is up to 30.3%, above league average and the highest we've seen from him since 2022. The last time I gave him a segment in this column, I noted that the league was pitching him differently in the wake of last postseason, which is still true. He hasn't seen such a lack of pitches in the zone since 2019, and the amount of hittable fastballs and changeups he's getting has dropped precipitously compared to 2024 and 2025. Last year was a perfect storm: He saw more in-zone fastballs and chased less than he ever had. We're still waiting to see how he'll counter. Kevin Gausman The Blue Jays' Opening Day starter became the sixth active pitcher to reach 2,000 career strikeouts on Monday against Tampa, a testament to how well his contract has worked out for both sides as we progress through its final year. Still, he got tagged for six earned runs on 10 hits across 4.2 innings. Kevin Gausman hasn't looked quite as sharp in recent outings as he did to start the year; part of the story on Monday was bad luck (the Rays hit .435 against him with an xBA of .290), but even by expected batting average, it was his second-worst outing of 2026. The Rays put six lefties in their lineup, which makes it fascinating that Gausman only threw his signature splitter 33% of the time in those matchups, a new season low...which surpassed the low he previously set last week, also against Tampa. He threw them a ton of four-seamers instead, which may seem counterintuitive given the Rays' lineup has the flattest average swing path in MLB. Flat swings are usually good for making contact and slugging against high fastballs, but they can be vulnerable against low secondaries. However, I think this was intentional. Eno Sarris of The Athletic noted on his podcast last week that at the time, the Rays were 30th in MLB in weighted value against four-seamers because most of their hitters don't catch them out in front, leading to a lack of power. Theoretically, locating four-seamers down in the zone against them as Gausman did on Monday would lead to a lot of swings over the top of the ball. Yet, he got burned on plays such as a pair of weakly hit singles by speedster Chandler Simpson and a well-placed groundball single by Richie Palacios. He only gave up two extra-base hits the entire outing. Both were barrels hit by lefties, and both came on fastballs that missed in - you guessed it - the upper part of the zone. That's baseball! Gausman's Four-Seam Location vs LHB - Catcher's View 5/11/2026 vs TB (left) and 2026 overall (right) All data from Baseball Savant and FanGraphs, as of May 14, 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. After recovering enough to undo their early-April struggles, the Blue Jays went down without much of a fight in St. Petersburg, getting swept in their first set at Tropicana Field since 2024. A series win against the Angels over the weekend may sound like a relief, but they let slip an opportunity to sweep them on Sunday afternoon. After jumping out to a 1-0 lead and forcing José Soriano to throw 25 pitches in the bottom of the first, the bats proceeded to shut down as Soriano only needed 78 pitches to get through the next 6.2 innings. The long ball continued to haunt Eric Lauer, who gave up six runs in five innings to take the loss. They're 18-22, the Rays are coming to town next, and the sense of urgency is climbing. Pitching 3. Patrick Corbin: Junior Caminero GIDP, Bot 1, 5/6 (+10.6% WPA) The offense once again squandered a respectable effort by Patrick Corbin, whose advanced metrics suggest his days with an ERA under 4.00 might be numbered. After getting into early trouble on Wednesday, he located this sinker beautifully off the outer half of the plate, getting Junior Caminero, the most dangerous power threat in the Rays' lineup, to ground into an easy unassisted 4-3 double play. 2. Trey Yesavage: Vaughn Grissom LIDP, Top 2, 5/9 (+11.0% WPA) Vaughn Grissom didn't put a bad swing on this Trey Yesavage fastball, turning it around on a line to right field, but Addison Barger ensured that no run would score on the play thanks to a dazzling 101-mph outfield assist. This clutch play might've come with a curse, though, as Barger was scratched with elbow soreness on Sunday, just a day after getting activated from the IL. He'll be getting an MRI on that elbow shortly. The injuries just keep piling onto each other. 1. Trey Yesavage: Sebastian Rivero GIDP, Top 4, 5/9 (+19.4% WPA) Yesavage exited Saturday's start without giving up a run, but he didn't have his best stuff, as the Angels knocked him out after he threw 87 pitches through four innings. Despite that, he continues to have a knack for well-timed double plays. On a full count with the bases loaded, Sebastian Rivero chased a fastball below the zone and grounded it harmlessly to Ernie Clement, who turned the inning-ender himself. According to win probability, this was the fifth-most clutch play by a Toronto pitcher this season so far. Hitting 3. Kazuma Okamoto: RBI Single, Bot 3, 5/8 (+12.0% WPA) Kazuma Okamoto's monstrous stretch (254 wRC+ in May) is showing no signs of slowing down, as this RBI single on Friday night proved to be the eventual winner in a 2-0 Blue Jays victory. It was one of only three hits they got on the night, which, along with his 26 RBIs being eight more than the next closest hitter on the team, indicates how much he has been carrying the lineup. 2. Yohendrick Piñango: RBI Single, Top 5, 5/5 (+12.3% WPA) This was an impressive piece of hitting from Yohendrick Piñango, who was unfortunately the odd man out when Barger returned on Saturday but is likely to be the first call-up if the MRI on Barger's elbow reveals any sort of bad news. Drew Rasmussen, who owns one of the best cut fastballs in the game, bunched him up with a first-pitch cutter in on the hands. Piñango fought it off and took it right back up the middle to score Clement and give the Blue Jays the lead, one they would not hold after the baseball gods conjured an evil force to hex Tyler Rogers in the bottom of the eighth. 1. Andrés Giménez: RBI Single, Top 2, 5/5 (+12.3% WPA) The Blue Jays went 2-4 this week. One of those wins was by a 2-0 score, in which they scored both runs early, and the other was a 14-1 rout. As such, it was a quiet stretch in terms of truly impactful swings, as this Andrés Giménez single doesn't even crack the top 40 biggest WPA changes on the season for the offense. Giménez's bouncing ball up the middle scored Daulton Varsho from second to put the Jays up 2-0, which was about as good as things got at any point during the Tampa series. They'll try to get their revenge at home this 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. Click here to read the last edition. Quick Hits: Baserunning The state of the offense is dire at the moment, but the Blue Jays aren't doing themselves any favors on the basepaths. According to Statcast's baserunning run value, they've been the second-worst team in the AL, ahead of only the Guardians. Baserunning wasn't a strength of last year's team, as they ranked inside the bottom 10 in this category as well, but when runs are this hard to come by, they can't afford to give away the few opportunities they do get. The Jays have the second-slowest average sprint speed of any team in the majors as well, but a lack of fast runners doesn't always equal bad baserunning. Other slow teams like the Mariners, Twins, and even the Yankees have been able to overcome it through good instincts and a strategic understanding of when to take the extra base on a ball in play. For Toronto, it has been the worst of both worlds. On an individual level, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Myles Straw (ironic given how fast he is), Ernie Clement, and Kazuma Okamoto (insignificant given how well he's hitting) have been the culprits here. For how multifaceted this lineup is when things are going well, the Jays simply aren't built to win games on the bases, which is problematic when they're chasing everything and relying on hitting singles as much as they are. All of this further underscores the growing urgency they face to start slugging. Yohendrick Piñango Beyond Okamoto, Yohendrick Piñango has been one of the only other positives amidst this latest offensive lull. His production through the first 26 plate appearances of his big league career is putting the front office in a conundrum in terms of roster moves when Addison Barger returns Friday, as Jays Centre's Sam Charles recently outlined. Piñango is hitting .400 and has struck out just three times since his debut. It's worth noting he's hitting .583 against fastballs, which he has seen around half the time, and doing way worse against secondaries, so I'd imagine he'll start seeing more soft stuff the longer he sticks around. Piñango has an enviable toolset. His bat speed is 4 mph higher than league average and would be among the top 25 in the league if he were qualified, while his swing is slightly shorter than average. He has very quick hands and has already hit a ball 111 mph, while his zone contact rate is an elite 93.5%. As frustrating as it would be to see one of the only hot hitters on the roster get demoted upon Barger's reinstatement from the IL, Piñango is doing a lot of the things that are hampering the rest of the lineup: chasing a ton (39.1%) and not lifting whatsoever (1.7° avg. LA). Much like his teammate Vladimir Guerrero Jr., his timing is much more of an issue than his swing plane. He's worth keeping in the team's short-term plans, but I worry about his lack of discipline and his poor batted ball angles becoming sore spots once he starts seeing more secondaries. Yohendrick Piñango Swing Mechanics Comps, 2026 Player Bat Speed Swing Length Swing Tilt Attack Angle Attack Direction Ryan Vilade 75.7 mph 7.45 ft 31.8° 3.1° 1.1° Vladimir Guerrero Jr. 76.4 mph 7.49 ft 28.7° 3.4° -3.2° Denzel Clarke 76.4 mph 7.59 ft 30.4° 4.3° -1.3° Curtis Mead 72.1 mph 7.05 ft 31.9° 3.8° -2.4° Bobby Witt Jr. 73.2 mph 6.98 ft 27.7° 5.1° -1.2° Jeff Hoffman It's possible to be both bad and unlucky at the same time, an apt summary of how the season started for Jeff Hoffman. Things have taken a turn for the better since he was officially removed from the closer's role on April 24: In 5 innings since that date, he has given up one earned run, struck out five, walked one, and done a much better job at keeping the ball on the ground. His fastball velocity is up, averaging at least 96.5 mph in every appearance he has made in the month of May so far. In his scoreless seventh inning on Tuesday, it reached a new single-game high of 98 mph for his tenure as a Blue Jay. He wasn't kidding when he said the Tropicana Field mound was his favourite to pitch on. Earlier in the year, he showed an increased liking for his devastating splitter, and as the control issues mounted throughout April, he lost confidence in his fastball. The fact that he has thrown it harder and more often over the past couple of weeks is a welcome sign that he's regaining confidence. Despite his shaky ninth innings, there were signs that positive regression was imminent from every direction: a K-BB near 30%, a BABIP north of .500, a strand rate below 70%, and an xFIP and SIERA in the low 2.00s. That has come to fruition of late, but he's making his own luck too. Jesús Sanchez After starting the year on the right foot, Jesús Sánchez has gone ice-cold. His wRC+ on the season is down to 78. The injuries to George Springer and Addison Barger in April have made the slump feel like a missed opportunity to earn more playing time and a central role in the lineup. There are a lot of factors at play here. His .381 SLG indicates the 2.8-mph drop in bat speed we've seen compared to last year (second-largest in the majors by the way, yikes) has not been a worthwhile endeavor. Intertwined with that has been the further shortening of his swing. All this has done is bring his contact rate to the 54th percentile, a marginal improvement over the 39th-percentile mark he posted in 2025. We can also add Sánchez to the group of Jays hitters that is currently way too undisciplined to be productive. His chase rate against fastballs has jumped nine percentage points. Even worse, it's up nearly 17 points on breaking balls. Throw in some bad luck (.286 wOBA, .325 xwOBA), and this is how you end up with a talented hitter on pace for a career-worst season. Jesús Sánchez Chase Rate by Pitch Group, 2025 vs. 2026 Pitch Group 2025 2026 Breaking Balls 42.4% 59.1% Fastballs 22.5% 31.5% On the bright side, Sánchez isn't pounding the ball into the ground as much as in years past, but that doesn't mean much when it isn't coming off the bat with as much authority. I'm not sure whether this is a coaching thing, the result of something he's playing through, or just the trials and tribulations of a 162-game schedule, the latter of which is more responsible for the various misfortunes of our favourite players and teams than we'd like to admit. Either way, it's hard to picture this lineup getting going without him. 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. For the second consecutive week, the Blue Jays climbed a little closer to .500 after digging themselves quite a hole in early April. Things started well with a key series win against a divisional opponent in the form of the hapless Red Sox, and they had a chance to take 3 of 4 from the Twins on the weekend but were stymied on Sunday by a bullpen they spent the previous two games feasting on. After settling for the split, they're now 16-18 and are 9-5 in their last 14 games. Here are the plays most worth remembering from this past week. Pitching 3. Dylan Cease: Ceddanne Rafaela Groundout, Top 4, 4/27 (+5.5% wPA) Last Monday's opener against Boston had the makings of an all-time pitcher's duel, but Dylan Cease ultimately failed to outdo Ranger Suárez in the end. At the time of this play, though, the Jays were still very much in it. Even against the bottom of the order, a 3-2 pitch with runners on the corners and two outs in a 1-0 game is highly consequential, and Cease got Ceddanne Rafaela to roll over a slider just off the high-and-outside corner to escape the threat. 2. Dylan Cease: Ryan Jeffers Flyout, Bot 3, 5/2 (+5.8% wPA) With a runner on third and one out, Cease was not looking to induce anything in the air past the infield, especially with his team already down by a run, although a sac fly might've been considered a victory against Ryan Jeffers, who tormented the Blue Jays in April. And yet, even with Daulton Varsho's weaker throwing arm in center field, Jeffers couldn't quite get this one deep enough to score Trevor Larnach, and the game remained 3-2. 1. Braydon Fisher: Willson Contreras GIDP, Top 5, 4/29 (+11.7% wPA) It wasn't the most notable week for Jays pitchers in the single-play win probability department, due to the way the club's wins played out on the scoreboard, so Braydon Fisher getting Willson Contreras to ground into a double play on Wednesday afternoon stands as the Clutch Play of the Week for the staff. Of course, had Contreras even singled, Toronto's lead would've gotten uncomfortable in a hurry, so this was a timely grounder that set the stage for the offense to break the game open in the later innings. Hitters 3. Kazuma Okamoto: 2-RBI Single, Bot 3, 4/29 (+16.1% wPA) Kazuma Okamoto's stance adjustment to cover the outer half of the plate paid dividends here, as Brayan Bello's backdoor sinker leaked a little too far into the zone. He didn't try to do too much with it, rifling it into left-center field for a base hit to give the Blue Jays a lead they wouldn't relinquish. These bases-loaded situations gave Okamoto fits at the outset of his MLB career, but after this week, it's safe to say he's built for the moment. 2. Kazuma Okamoto: 2-RBI Single, Bot 3, 4/28 (+17.5% wPA) Red Sox lefty Payton Tolle made Okamoto look silly the pitch before this, blowing a perfectly located fastball by him to even the count. He doubled down with two strikes but couldn't elevate, and his reaction as soon as he let it go says it all. Okamoto turned on it, lacing it over the head of Roman Anthony and off the left field wall on a bounce. He tried to stretch it into a double but was thrown out, a call which surprisingly wasn't overturned after video review. Still, this hit was all the pitching staff needed; they shut Boston out and evened the series. 1. Kazuma Okamoto: RBI Single, Top 8, 5/2 (+25.4% wPA) It's a clean sweep for Okamoto, who was a man possessed last week. This wasn't even close to his farthest hit of the week, but by WPA, it was the most important, tying the game in the eighth and setting the stage for what would become an eight-run inning as the Jays stormed back to win 11-4 on Saturday. What's ironic is that Luis Garcia got the groundball he wanted here, but Okamoto hit it hard enough and took it right back up the middle to avoid the double play. The Jays simply wouldn't have been able to make it a winning week if it weren't for his efforts. View full article

Welcome to the season's first installment of Minor League Starting Pitchers of the Month here on Jays Centre! While Toronto's farm system hasn't exactly been at the top of the league for a few years now, things definitely appear to be trending upward, especially on the pitching side. Lately, the Blue Jays have acquired and developed arms like Trey Yesavage, Mason Fluharty, and Braydon Fisher in short order. Now, thanks in part to the work of key figures in the front office such as veteran amateur scouting director Marc Tramuta and pitching director Justin Lehr, their prospect pool is full of intriguing starters, especially in the lower levels of the minors. Here's who stood out from the first month of games in 2026. Honourable Mentions Richard Gallardo, RHP (AA): 4 GS, 17.0 IP, 1.06 ERA, 4.28 FIP, 4.77 xFIP, 24.4% CSW The underlying numbers suggest the 24-year-old Gallardo's microscopic ERA is a bit of a red herring, but he has still been the centerpiece for a New Hampshire rotation that doesn't currently have anyone else with an ERA under 4.20. The Blue Jays took him from the Cubs in the minor league portion of the 2024 Rule 5 draft, and he missed all of 2025 with an elbow injury, but he has come back strong. Thanks to his ability to pound the zone with a mid-90s sinker, he's running a 60% groundball rate for the Fisher Cats, and opponents are hitting just .176 against him. Landen Maroudis, RHP (A+): 5 GS, 16.0 IP, 1.69 ERA, 3.23 FIP, 5.07 xFIP, 24.2% CSW After losing more than a calendar year due to elbow surgery, the 2023 fourth-round pick has fared well in his first stretch outside the player development complex in Florida. FanGraphs gave him 55 future value grades on his sinker, changeup, and slider, and the fact that his walk rate is down to ~7% after control issues plagued him following his return from injury is a good sign. He's not overpowering and gets hitters out in a variety of different ways, although a next step for him would be to keep the ball down, as opposing hitters are elevating, hence the bloated xFIP. Still, this is a promising development for a pitcher coming off a major injury who wasn't quite himself upon his immediate return. Hitters are 5 for their last 32 against him. Top 3 #3. Daniel Guerra, RHP (A+): 5 GS, 24.1 IP, 2.22 ERA, 3.63 FIP, 3.50 xFIP, 32.6% CSW Signed as an 18-year-old minor league free agent from Venezuela back in 2022, Guerra has quickly become a riser on the edges of Toronto's system and a workhorse for the Vancouver Canadians. He first broke out last season with a solid year in Dunedin, and his promotion to the Northwest League, where he's still younger than the average pitcher, has been quite the success so far. Standing at 6-foot-6 and 230 lbs, he's striking out 34.7% of opposing hitters so far, armed with a powerful high-90s fastball. He failed to crack FanGraphs' preseason top 40 Jays prospects list due to his underdeveloped secondaries and high walk rates, but he's turning heads after an excellent start that included an 11-strikeout performance on April 16 and an 18-whiff outing on the 27th. #2. Johnny King, LHP (A+): 5 GS, 14.1 IP, 0.63 ERA, 2.61 FIP, 3.29 xFIP, 33.1% CSW It's been a while since the Blue Jays have drafted and developed a lefty starter. The jury's still out on whether hot draft commodities Ricky Tiedemann and Brandon Barriera can make the leap, but it's looking more and more like Johnny King could be that guy. The 2024 third-round pick out of high school jumped all the way to No. 4 in Baseball America's latest preseason ranking of the Jays' top 30 prospects, with BA diagnosing him as a viable mid-rotation option once he gets to the big leagues. He's walking too many batters at the moment but has been effective thanks to a 38.6% K rate in Vancouver. In Dunedin last year, his mid-90s fastball averaged 17.6" of iVB from a low slot, making it a swing-and-miss pitch thanks to its deceptive flight path. He doesn't even turn 20 until late July, but he already looks like the class of the pitching prospect pool now that Yesavage is back in the big leagues. #1. Nolan Perry, RHP (A): 4 GS (5 G), 21.0 IP, 1.71 ERA, 2.43 FIP, 2.58 xFIP, 33.0% CSW The unanimously unranked Perry is bursting onto the scene with Dunedin in 2026. If this keeps up, it'll be a remarkable player development victory for the Blue Jays, who drafted him out of high school in the 12th round in 2022 and signed him to a bonus worth only $200,000. He had Tommy John surgery late in 2024 and has taken off since his return, with a ludicrous 38.7% K-BB% so far. The movement on his 94-mph fastball might be even more deceptive than King's at the moment, with 18.1" of iVB from a similarly low slot on the other side of the mound. His mid-80s slider and massive high-70s curveball are both running swing-and-miss rates over 50% on the young season as well. We're still quite early into his ascension, but making the most out of late-round picks is a hallmark of a successful front office. Let's hope Perry continues to dominate. 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: ABS Brandon Valenzuela went a perfect 3-for-3 challenging ball calls behind the plate in Wednesday's series finale against the Red Sox. He also homered in the contest as an added bonus. One month into the ABS era, the Blue Jays have been one of the better teams in baseball at using the challenge system to their benefit when they're fielding (this is entirely thanks to their catchers; no Toronto pitcher has challenged a call yet). Statcast uses a model to predict the challenge probability of a given pitch based on location, number of challenges remaining, runners on, the count, and the number of outs in the inning. Based on that model, the Jays are 13th out of 30 in overturns above expected. They are eighth out of 30 in run value gained from their overturns above expected. Valenzuela has proven to be a very adept defensive catcher to start his MLB career; he and Tyler Heineman are doing a good job getting extra strikes for their pitching staff. Trey Yesavage Last year's postseason hero returned to action on Tuesday against Boston, and it was a resounding success (5.1 IP, 0 ER, 4 H, 3 K, 0 BB). Trey Yesavage didn't record his first strikeout until the fourth inning, a stark contrast to the copious amounts of swing-and-miss he generated last October, but he didn't walk anyone and induced tons of weak contact. Of the 17 batted balls he allowed, only one had an expected batting average over .500. Only three were hard hit (>95 MPH exit velocity). The average xBA of those 17 batted balls was a meager .160. The best one was a first-inning double by Willson Contreras, which, even though it technically qualified as a barrel, was not hit high enough to be a home run in any MLB stadium. There's no problem with a lack of swing and miss if the balls in play are that non-threatening. Nothing about Yesavage's velocity was out of the ordinary, and the movement on both the fastball and splitter was also standard. If I have one question about his outing, it's about the lack of his signature "wrong-way" slider. He threw it just six times, five of them to righties. Now, it was responsible for one of his three strikeouts, but was it a lack of feel for it coming off the injury or a deliberate part of his gameplan? He threw it frequently during his last rehab start, so I'm inclined to say the latter. His next start is scheduled for Sunday in Minnesota. They've been a very good slider-hitting team this year, but then again, not many sliders in this league move like Yesavage's. Kazuma Okamoto Kazuma Okamoto struggled mightily to put bat on ball and drive in runs in the first couple weeks of his career. He finally had a huge day on April 19 in Arizona with a home run and a double (this was the day the Jays put up an eight-spot in the first inning). Since the start of that game, he's hitting .265, slugging .559, and only striking out 28% of the time, way down from the dangerous low-40s territory he was occupying earlier. What changed? Most of Okamoto's initial problems had to do with secondary pitches. Eno Sarris of The Athletic noted that he recently changed his stance in such a way that it gives him more time to detect pitch types while also putting him in a better position to cover the outside half of the plate. His hot streak is no accident. This doesn't automatically mean Okamoto is still going to get to every down-and-away slider he sees, but it will force pitchers to think differently about him. Last weekend, he launched home runs above the Rogers Centre batter's eye and into the WestJet Flight Deck on back-to-back days. Both of them were on middle-away fastballs. He hooked a down-and-away fastball for a 2-RBI double off Payton Tolle on Tuesday as well. Pitchers exploited a weakness of his in early April, and he adjusted. Now they'll have to adjust back. Spencer Miles Spencer Miles was a name shrouded in mystery when the Blue Jays selected him in the Rule 5 draft. He had never pitched above A-ball before, a level he reached in 2022. Talks of a high-90s sinker and MLB-quality stuff were encouraging, but he had a lot to prove coming into the year. So far so good! Miles has a 2.87 ERA, 3.82 FIP, and a 3.44 xFIP through his first nine outings. He has pitched 15.2 innings in those outings, and I'd love to see the Jays take advantage of his multi-inning capabilities more often so as to preserve the high-leverage arms on the staff. With how good pitchers are these days, a 96-mph sinker with 16 inches of arm-side tail isn't as special as it used to be. Both stuff models on FanGraphs (Stuff+, PitchingBot) see Miles's sinker, and his arsenal in general, as run-of-the-mill. The models do think higher of his command. From a results standpoint, he has a 55th-percentile K rate, a 64th-percentile BB rate, and a 90th-percentile hard-hit rate. Nothing special, but it gets the job done. In addition to his location, I believe his arsenal is quite advanced for a reliever and is also helping his stuff play up. He uses all four of his pitch types enough that hitters on both sides can't discount them, and he mixes both velocity and movement well in doing so. Check out his repertoire through this screenshot from the Paired Pitches tool on FanGraphs Lab: His sinker gets enough separation from his four-seamer that, hypothetically, if a lefty hitter thinks he's getting a middle-middle four-seamer but it's actually a sinker, it would wind up perfectly on the lower outside corner of the zone. All stats from FanGraphs and Baseball Savant, through games on April 29, 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. At long last, the Blue Jays finally started to look like themselves again this week, finishing off their lengthy road trip with a series win in Anaheim and then taking two of three from the Guardians at home. This is despite their nightmarish injury bug refusing to go away, as Nathan Lukes wound up on the IL after pulling his hamstring running out of the box on Friday. Still, they fought through it and have been getting consistent timely hitting for about a week now, a good sign ahead of their upcoming matchup against the Red Sox. Here are the moments that mattered most from this past week. Pitching 3. Louis Varland: Brayan Rocchio Strikeout, Top 9, 4/25 (+12.6% wPA) In his first inning of work since Jeff Hoffman was officially removed from the closer role, Louis Varland found himself in an immensely precarious situation. Toronto led 5-2 when he entered the game, but a string of great at-bats by Cleveland brought the Guardians to within two runs with the bases loaded and just 1 out. Varland struck out Bo Naylor, and then, with the count at 2-2, he dialed it up to 98 to put Brayan Rocchio away and seal the win. 2. Patrick Corbin: Steven Kwan GIDP, Top 5, 4/26 (+14.8% wPA) Unfortunately, Angel Martínez would double in the tying run immediately after this, but the things that Patrick Corbin has done for this team over the past few weeks shouldn't be discounted. In the fifth inning on Sunday, he got Steven Kwan, one of the best bat-to-ball and line drive hitters in the game, to roll a perfectly placed front-door sinker directly to Davis Schneider at second base for the twin killing. Corbin failed to finish the frame, but the bullpen luckily picked him up on the way to a series win. 1. Louis Varland: Nolan Schanuel GIDP, Bot 9, 4/21 (+34.0% wPA) We have a new frontrunner for Clutch Pitching Play of the Season. With the winning run on first base and one out in the ninth inning, Varland came into a bases-loaded situation and promptly induced a game-ending double play from Nolan Schanuel. Soon after, Leo Morgenstern put out a great piece that emphasizes just how rare and impressive a one-pitch, two-out save is, especially for Varland, who had essentially no experience closing games before last week. According to win probability added, this would've been the second-most pivotal play of 2025 for the Jays' pitching staff. Hitting 3. Ernie Clement: RBI Single, Top 7, 4/22 (+18.6% wPA) This at-bat beautifully personifies the essence of Ernie Clement as a hitter. With two strikes against him, he reached for a well-located sweeper just off the corner down and away and snuck it up the middle to tie the game. The Blue Jays would give up four runs in the bottom half, but this was a huge hit at the time. They entered the top of the seventh down 3-0 and tied it against the bullpen after Angels ace José Soriano was removed following yet another quality start. 2. Vladimir Guerrero Jr.: 2-run HR, Top 3, 4/20 (+19.4% wPA) Vladimir Guerrero Jr. has been on fire lately, but he hasn't quite tapped into his home run power on a consistent basis. Last Monday, though, he got a changeup from Reid Detmers that caught a little too much of the plate and walloped it deep into the southern California sky. The pitch, the swing, and the result were quite reminiscent of his moonshot off Carlos Rodón in Game 3 of the 2025 ALDS. This one propelled the Jays to a series-opening win that would set the tone for the week ahead. 1. Lenyn Sosa: 2-RBI Double, Top 8, 4/21 (+30.7% wPA) The newcomer Lenyn Sosa made his mark in the Angels series, slamming a pinch-hit double off the wall in right to break a 1-1 tie in the eighth inning on Tuesday. This is exactly what the coaching staff hopes he'll be able to do at the plate: come up with a big hit off the other team's best lefty reliever. Sosa is a very aggressive hitter, and Drew Pomeranz probably wanted this fastball to end up a little more outside than it did. The former White Sox were all over this game, as Eloy Jiménez later singled Sosa home to make it a three-run inning. 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: Reinforcements Trey Yesavage made another rehab start for Triple-A Buffalo on Tuesday. It didn't go great (2.1 IP, 4 R, 2 ER, 2 H, 2 K, 4 BB), and he failed to reach his 75-pitch target. Either way, it was his fourth rehab start of the year, as he continues to work his way back from the right shoulder impingement that he reported to camp with. The following day, John Schneider said the goal for Yesavage's next outing will be 80 pitches. It's just a matter of whether that start happens with Toronto or with Buffalo again. He seems to be one more rehab start away, at most, from rejoining the team. Most importantly, his stuff doesn't seem to be affected by the injury. His fastball averaged 94.3 mph and 19-20" of iVB on Tuesday, right in line with what we saw last year. His splitter averaged about 82 mph, which is a couple of ticks slower than it was in the 2025 postseason, but it also had almost 200 fewer RPM and three more inches of drop. This would bring the vertical separation between the fastball and splitter to nearly 15 inches. If that helps him induce more ugly swings like the ones we saw all throughout his magical October, then so be it. The Jays won three in a row earlier this week to salvage some ground, but they still need to get healthy. Hopefully, Yesavage isn't the only key reinforcement to arrive over the next few weeks. In terms of who could be on the hot seat when the time comes, Patrick Corbin has outpitched Eric Lauer in each of the past two turns through the rotation, but the jury's still out. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. I can't believe I'm saying this, but Vladimir Guerrero Jr.'s results are matching his expected numbers. He's hitting for a 151 wRC+ through his first 24 games, and his wOBA and xwOBA are within seven points of each other. Among Blue Jays with at least 50 PA, Daulton Varsho is the only other hitter with a wRC+ over 110. Vlad is the best hitter in this lineup, and he's performing like it. His production might even be a little unsustainable given his peripherals. His groundball rate is over 55% for the first time in his career, his average launch angle is lower than it's been since 2022, and he only has two home runs on the young season. He's finding a way despite lifting the ball less than he ever has, which was never a lot to begin with. On the other hand, his swing tilt and attack angle are both up from last year, so maybe this is something that will naturally work itself out. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Batted Balls, 2025 vs. 2026 (Statcast) Stat 2025 2026 GB% 47.1% 55.3% LA° 7.8° 4.5° xSLG .506 .486 Barrel% 12.2% 11.8% Pitchers around the league took notice after he bludgeoned his way through the postseason. Guerrero is seeing more breaking balls this year (34.1%) than he has at any point during his time in the big leagues. A similar pattern developed in 2022 following his MVP runner-up season in 2021. Due to his reputation around the league, as well as the current state of the Jays' lineup around him, that isn't likely to change anytime soon. Let's see how he punches back. Tyler Rogers Absolutely nothing has surprised us about Tyler Rogers in the season's early going (12.1 IP, 0.73 ERA). The king of soft contact has taken things to another level in 2026: His groundball rate has eclipsed 70%, his hard hit rate is under 20%, and opposing hitters' average exit velocity is 82 mph. This is the submariner at his peak. A week and a half ago, the Brewers scored two runs in the eighth inning off him to win the game. One of those runs was unearned, and not a single batted ball left the infield. That outing remains the only blemish on his season. Tyler Rogers sinker location vs. RHB, 2025 (left) and 2026 (right) - Statcast I'm not sure if this is intentional or small-sample weirdness, but Rogers has been throwing his sinker up in the zone more to right-handed hitters. Thankfully, the conventional laws of baseball do not apply to a man with a -61° arm angle, so rather than facilitating more damage from opponents, this has actually had the opposite effect. Looking at his bat tracking splits tells us he has righties in knots right now. Their average attack angle against his sinker is down to -6°, attack direction is up to 17° toward the opposite field, and contact depth is three inches closer to the plate. These are all indicators that they're so absurdly late, even though the pitch is only 83 mph on average. Exactly how he wants it. Ernie Clement Ernie Clement is enjoying his best run of the year so far. He's hit safely in each of his last seven games and collected multiple hits in four of his last five. His slash line is up to .320/.327/.420 on the year. I'm not worried by the fact that he has only drawn a single walk through his first 101 PA; he walked just 4.6% of the time last year, and he's always chased a lot. Besides, that all becomes easier to swallow when he's hitting .320. He has struck out just seven times to that one walk, his zone contact rate is 94.5%, and he has 97th-percentile collision efficiency according to Statcast. He's squaring everything up. Can this continue over a full season? Only 29 qualified hitters in baseball (from a sample of 283) have a bigger positive difference between their wOBA and their xwOBA than Clement. His BABIP is currently .344, compared to a career BABIP of .282. At the same time, he seems like the type of hitter that can reasonably outperform expectations because he hits so many line drives and puts the ball in play a lot. Like Guerrero, Clement is seeing way more breaking balls than he ever has after his record-setting October. Much of his success last year came against fastballs, both in the regular season and the postseason. It's not easy to hit after the whole world is exposed to your game plan on the biggest stage. Hopefully, he can keep them coming. Ernie Clement Line Drive% Ranking Among 278 Qualified Hitters, 2026 (Statcast) Rank Hitter LD% 17 Ildemaro Vargas 31.6% 18 Troy Johnston 31.6% 19 Ernie Clement 31.2% 20 Ezequiel Tovar 31.1% 21 Jorge Polanco 31.1% All visuals and figures courtesy of Baseball Savant and FanGraphs. Up to date as of April 23, 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. 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