Michael Stefanic getting his 1st start of the year at 2B & batting 8th. Presumably a scheduled day off for Clement, who the broadcast keeps mentioning has been hitting over .400 over his last 10 games.

Clase starting in LF & hitting ninth.

Hopefully Stefanic or Clase can show some of the strokes they've had down in AAA. Because otherwise the starting 9 is only about 7 hitters long.

Santander also sitting with Springer at DH & Lukes in RF.

Varsho bumped up to the 3 spot.

The Tigers are somehow leading the major leagues in run differential, edging out the Yankees - they have, to date, been a very good team.

Normally, you'd say they're getting an advantage from playing in the Central division, but apart from the White Sox (who are just ordinary bad this year) everyone in the Central is above .500 by at least 4 games.

Even dodging Skubal, this will be a tough test for the Jays. They are a pretty left-handed lineup, so I'd expect to see Fluharty and Little leaned on fairly heavily this series.

Just found out that it's MLB "Rivalry Weekend" with mostly interleague games and geographic matchups.

The Jays & Tigers are an outlier as 11 of 15 matchups this weekend are interleague.

https://www.si.com/mlb/ranking-inaugural-rivalry-weekend-matchups

All-time record: 247–212, Blue Jays

Kind of surprised that the Jays have a +35 game edge in the historic series. The Jays were awful for the late 70s to mid 80s when the Tigers were powerhouse with Morris, Trammell, Whitaker.

I wonder how much the Tigers being awful for a decade since they traded David Price for AA's last stretch run. Although with the teams only really ever playing an annual home & home series with AL Central opponents, it would take many lopsided years to shift the ledger.

One of the silly things about realignment is that all the Jays closest geographical rivals are in the central. Tigers were easily Jays #1 rival when I was a kid and the short drive/overlapping fanbases made it fun. You can drive to Detroit or Cleveland easily for a weekend in a way you can't for any other team (Pirates excepted but they're in other league).

For a guy who had 4 games of professional centerfield experience coming into this season, that was one heck of a play by Baez. Go figure.

That’s the third ball in the past few games that Clase has played poorly. Small sample size but he looks terrible defensively. I don’t think he’s long for the big club.

The Jays are definitely squaring the ball up more and hitting HR's lately but they have to be leading the league in balls hit to the warning track.

Although the outcry has been for another big bat, their starting pitching is much more of a problem.

On the positive side, the more I watch Barger the more I can actually see it. It’s all about some semblance of strike zone control for him.

For the first time my radio workaround streaming site has been blacked out. Finally found 1 michign station with the VPan, in time to hear McKinstry's HR. Announcers said the pitch was middle middle with not much happening.
Has anyone looked at charts for his good run last year vs this yewr to see if there are notable differences?
Would be nice to know if theres a mechanical reason to explain grooving more pitches.
Anyway, my broadcast got interrupted by a storm warning. When I checled the wcore, 4-0 so I think Im gonna forget the game for the rest of the evening

Well, there is another Toronto game happening at the moment…

I have no idea why teams are pitching Varsho on the outer half but long may it last. Have these teams not watched the scouting report from the past 2 years?

The Tigers put their 4th or 5th best reliever in the closer position tonight. What a concept.

To be fair Brieske was the favourite for saves and maybe their #1 reliever going into the season. Not sure what Clase is doing up still. Looked completely overmatched on both sides of the ball and Jays have better options in AAA.

Varsho has 12 games played this season, but leads the team with 6 HR. Small sample sizes but the top 2 OPS for the Jays are Heineman and Varsho both above 900; Vlad and Springer (and Stefanic in 5 AB) in the 800s; Lukes, Bo, Barger, Straw, all mid-high 700s. Kirk and Clement struggling in the 600s, Santander, Gimenez, Roden, Wagner, Schneider, and Clase sub 600.

Jays as a team still being outhomered 67-40.

At the moment the AL East looks like the weakest division in the AL. It will be interesting to track how this plays out for the rest of the season. I expect Toronto and NY Yankees to be above .500 by the end of the season but I really don't know what to expect from Boston, Tampa and Baltimore.

Have to wonder if the shoulder surgery fixed an issue that's been bothering Varsho longer than initially thought. He hit 27 homers one year in Arizona but never showed that kind of pop with Toronto.

Santander out of lineup with hip issue. They should just IL him and call up Roden/Schneider/Loperfido. He was struggling anyway so giving him a few extra days is fine and the Jays can't afford to have empty spots on the roster. (Clase should also be replaced by someone better)

Orioles new rich owner and FO go cheap on pitching = fired manager

Clement gets the start at 1B today batting sixth with Vlad at DH, answering the question who the backup 1B on the current roster is with Wagner in AAA (at least with Santander day-to-day).

Clement played about 10 games or so at 1B in 2023 in Buffalo before being called up.

I really don't like having Vlady as DH today, and leaving no infielder options on the bench. I would think that Straw (2B) or Heineman (1B) would only play in case of an injury, so if they need to make a substitution on the infield, they'll probably have to move Vlady to 1B and lose the DH.

"Orioles new rich owner and FO go cheap on pitching = fired manager"

Blue Jays rich owner and FO go expensive on signings = immunity manager

The problem for me is that the bench is catcher, Clase who is overmatched, and Santander who is hurt and can't play. Poor roster management. Three managers fired this year and none of them deserved it. Orioles are bad partly because they don't spend and partly because their GM is a prospect hugger.

Heinman is doing a really great impression of a good hitter if he is in fact not one.

Feels like Lauer could have done another 1-2 innings. He threw 63 pitches last outing and only threw 41 (and more efficient) this game. Going to tax the bullpen for reasons I don't understand.

I doubt Heineman has suddenly become a good hitter. But more than one C has had an unusual development curve. Heineman has a couple of things going for him. He looks to be above average defensively and he’s pretty fast (for a C). I could imagine him have a couple of pretty useful years as a backup.

Likelihood of Heineman becoming this good is about the same as Santander becoming this bad.

Hey, I'm back!

First baseball I've seen in a week. They seem somewhat preoccupied with hockey in Winnipeg.

Either Lauer is hurt or the Jays are doing their usual "stick to the plan" nonsense because there was no reason to take him out after 3 innings there. Now the pen will have to eat up 6 innings, and Schneider will probably use all the good ones regardless of the score.

pinch hitter Myles Straw.

argh.

Blame shared by both on this PH for me. Horrible roster construction keeps biting them. They just don't have a good bench and it's largely a choice. On the other hand, Straw is a useful extra OF but shouldn't be pinch hitting for anyone. Schneider tends to go L/R pinch hitting no matter what.

I'd be ecstatic if this FO hired Hyde...

One heck of an AB by Kirk.

Great win. Terrible decision by Hinch, but thank you very much!

<There is an old truism (Bill James?) That any backup catcher who plays long enoigh will eventually hit .300 ( or have a good offensive season).

The numbers suggest Barger has been good at 3b. Thr broadcast also mentioned he'd looked good snagging LDs .
Ive enjoyed Barger's 2nd stint up. And Lukes has been a decent placeholder.

Wish Varsho hit the Hr

Nice win. Feels like Jays wouldn't have won this game last year but have won a few like it this year.

Exciting win

Thanks, Detroit! It's nice to be out-mismanaged once in a while.

Great work by the pen today. Clement with another good game. He’s been great in May (117 wRC+) after a very slow April. It will be interesting to see what they do when Gimenez comes back. I’d guess it’s now Clement who sits rather than Barger but that has pluses and minuses. Although they’d never do it, Gimenez getting full time ABs shouldn’t be guaranteed.

Maybe it's the Detroit scouting that's at fault.
Walking Santander for Clement can be defended but attacking Clement with fastballs cannot.

The Twins are on the verge of winning their 13th game in a row. They’re tied for first place in the AL WC race. And they’re preventing and scoring more runs than the Blue Jays (without Popkins as their hitting coach). Can we have some of what they’re having?

Not every great thing that happens to other teams needs to mean a failure for the Blue Jays or serves as a good comparison. I've learned from the Leafs this playoff season that sports won't follow a rule or performance pattern. The Twins have had Byron Burton fully healthy and contributing more than Vlad. That's a big reason. In the 12 games they've won the best pitchers they've faced were Garret Crochet and Logan Webb. The other 10 games were 6 against the Orioles, 3 against the Giants (they drew Jordan Hicks) and Brewers and a bullpen game against the Red Sox. Not exactly what we'd call a tough schedule. I think they've been fortunate as much as their coaches have done anything to make it happen. They've drawn some favourable match ups against teams right when they're struggling. The one thing is think helps them? They have a better manager (just my opinion against Schneider.)

Ben Rice, as an aside, is hitting .203 AVG .743 OPS 4HR 11 RBI over the past 30 days

Vlad is hitting .284 AVG .854 OPS 4HR 10 RBI in same span without any breaks against tougher pitching compared to Ben Rice who is given lots of opportunities to rest against tough pitchers.

I hope the Jays can go on a long win streak. I think it's on the players who would be the limiting factor because II do agree with the sentiment that if given the exact same teams to play at the exact same time these Blue Jays would go 7-5 or 8-4 at best.

That's a super unlucky first inning.

Bo can't get doubled off on that play. I understand wanting to be aggressive, but he had a great vantage point to judge that ball. Yet he stopped, looked, and then bolted towards 3rd as Baddoo was diving to catch the ball.

ah santander moved down to the 5-hole. that move may have already earned us one run.

Clutch Clement.

I was surprised to see Fisher brought in to face Torkleson in the seventh with runners on base in a 2-2 game. That was a key point in the ballgame and Fisher is inexperienced. He threw two sliders and gave up the game-winning hit on the second one.

Also, Santander's ongoing woes again played a large role in the Blue Jays loss.

I was surprised to see Fisher brought in to face Torkleson in the seventh with runners on base in a 2-2 game.

The pen was really short today because they pulled Lauer after 3 innings yesterday.

The broadcast put up an infographic showing who in the pen had pitched on Friday & Saturday, bolding anyone who had pitched both days as the Jays haven't had anyone throw 3 consecutive days all season.

Half the pen other than Garcia & Hoffman were bolded out and unavailable today.

Yeah, the pen options were pretty limited today. They really need a multi inning reliever, particularly without a 5th starter. A Ryan Yarbrough type would be pretty useful right now.

That's also the mixed bag with them turning Yariel Rodriguez into a higher leverage reliever.

It's nice that he's had a run of success in shorter, late game outings.

But it also eliminates another long relief option in the pen in exchange for another 1-2 inning type for a team without a true 5th starter for the foreseeable future.

It also seems they don't trust Jose Urena either, as they've yanked him relatively early rather than trying to stretch him out.

At present, the bullpen really doesn't have many candidates to eat up garbage time innings like it did originally with guys like Jacob Barnes & Richard Lovelady types.

Say, on a different note, does it bug anyone else when they celebrate a US holiday here? The stupid military celebration hats they wore this past weekend were for Memorial Day weekend stateside - something we don't have here as it is Victoria Day weekend here as we all know.

It's even weirder because the US Memorial Day isn't until this coming weekend.

didn't have a special hat for "Rivalry Weekend"?

have to wait for Turnbull for a proper 5th starter, Lauer and bullpen till then

Yes, but it also bothers me that they play national anthems prior to the start of games and that police (civil servants) salute the flag(s).