I guess they will wait until tomorrow to activate Scherzer, just in case they need an extra arm tonight.

1. NYY 45-33, .577, 0.0, Streaks: 3-7, 9-11, 16-14
2. TBR 43-35, .551, 2.0, Streaks: 7-3, 13-7, 21-9
3. TOR 41-36, .532, 3.5, Streaks: 4-6, 12-8, 18-12
4. BOS 40-40, .500, 6.0, Streaks: 6-4, 12-9, 15-15
5. BAL 34-44, .436, 11.0, Streaks: 6-4, 12-8, 18-12

Doesn't look like we can completely ignore Batimore quite yet tbh.


WC

X HOU 45-33, .577, 0.0, Streaks: 7-3, 14-6, 20-10
X NYY 45-33, .577, 0.0, Streaks: 3-7, 9-11, 16-14

1. TBR 43-35, .551, 2.0, Streaks: 7-3, 13-7, 21-9
2. TOR 41-36, .532, 3.5, Streaks: 4-6, 12-8, 18-12
3. SEA 40-37, .519, 4.5, Streaks: 7-3, 9-11, 13-17
4. CLE 39-37, .513, 5.0, Streaks: 5-5, 9-11, 14-16
5. BOS 40-40, .500, 6.0, Streaks: 6-4, 12-9, 15-15

I don't think SEA/CLE/BOS are much threat to surge up too far above .500 tbh. Hopefully with Scherzer back now the Jays can get comfortably into that .550+ level at least.

By mid season run differential tends to be fairly predictive. I'm not sure that you should be writing off any of Bos/Cle/Seattle relative to the Jays chances.

too hot to hoot.

I just don't see those teams bouncing up above where they are. As far as I can tell they don't seem to have any likely expectations based on individuals underachieving significantly so far or impact guys coming back from injury.

And I only said i "hope" the jays are different - it's only a hope, but for me it's based on the fact that all the bigtime money we spent in the offseason has so far been worth literal negative value, which i think should change going forward. Not to mention vladdy has yet to tap into his expected power streak. And while we've had some borderline guys surprise in positive way (Barger, Clement, Lauer, Little, Fisher, Heineman) we've had just as many if not more completely implode (Roden, Wagner, Jimenez, Francis, Garcia, Swanson, Green), so i don't think we've received an artificial boost there either - and i'd expect even if those guys slow down some others will heat up.

So i don't think hoping on Scherzer/Santander/Gimenez/Hoffman being significantly better than negative value players the rest of the way is just pie in the sky stuff. Nor vladdy getting his power back.

then again, i'm a homer too.

The Mets have added Richard Lovelady to their bullpen. Except he now plans to go by the name Dicky Lovelady.

The jokes, they write themselves.

Also, the Blue Jays have a rich owner and a FO that is desperate to make and advance in the postseason. And the farm system is improved compared to last summer. That will likely translate into at least one or two significant additions at the trade deadline.

Some starting pitchers Kiley McDaniel mentions might be the “best fits” for Toronto (and some other teams) at the deadline:

Alcantara
Peralta
Lugo
Gallen
Kelly
Severino
Mahle
Buehler
Martinez
Fedde

The arms with the most appeal to me are probably Alcantara, Peralta, Lugo, Kelly. Maybe Gallen if he kicks it into gear in the next month.

Peralta could be a strong addition — maybe the best one on that list. Good track record, including some decent postseason work, and he’s having a good 2025 season. He has a power arm (FB averaging 94.9 MPH this year). He has an $8m club option for 2026, so he’s not just a rental.

bah.

Arden Zwelling
@ArdenZwelling
Daulton Varsho (hamstring) felt hamstring tightness while running the baes Monday. Blue Jays backing him off from running for now, but he’s still facing live pitching & taking fly balls

Club will monitor his recovery in coming days before continuing ramp up to minor-league games


cool.


Arden Zwelling
@ArdenZwelling
·
8m
Alek Manoah (Tommy John) threw 25 pitches over a one-inning live BP in Florida on Tuesday.

"It went really well," says Blue Jays manager John Schneider. "Velo was up to 95. Best he’s felt in a while."

Next step in Manoah’s build up will be a multiple-inning live BP.



Arden Zwelling
@ArdenZwelling
Yimi Garcia (shoulder) pitched an inning on Monday for the Blue Jays complex league team — he allowed a hit and struck out three, throwing 14 pitches (11 strikes).

Garcia’s scheduled to pitch next for the Dunedin Blue Jays on Thursday.

Arden Zwelling
@ArdenZwelling
·
7m
Ryan Bur (shoulder) is scheduled to pitch for the triple-A Buffalo Bisons Tuesday night.

It will be his third appearance since restarting his rehab assignment a week ago.

The next 5 starts are against RHP so I was hoping to see an all-righty lineup tonight with Kirk at DH and Schneider at 2nd. I like the idea of giving guys (especially Kirk) two days in a row off their feet, but the team might not want Schneider in the infield with Clement and Gimenez around.

Starting Gimenez against a LHP makes no sense:)

A ribbie for Clement! Way to get off the schneid.

I think Vladdy is swinging at more balls out of the zone these last few games.

Did Ned Flanders go on a date with the head of the umpire union's daughter and not have her home by midnight?

Did he accidentally not return the umpire union's lawnmower after he used it?

Did he accidentally set fire to the umpire union's mascot?

Good to see Clement moved up to #2 against a lefty. He's been mashing lefties all year.

Old friend Whit Merrifield has announced his retirement.

That was some play by Gimenez.

can we use a Designated Fielder

Nobody else makes that play. He's got great range and he gets back on his feet almost instantly.

robbie makes that play. maybe.

Lauer - WC play-in game starter - who knew.

Blue Jays 2025 starting rotation, sorted by ERA (and xFIP):

Lauer 2.01 (4.06)
Berrios 3.51 (4.26)
Bassitt 3.61 (3.49)
Gausman 4.60 (3.79)

Lauer is definitely holding his own. The other day he mentioned he's been working with a mental performance coach. It seems to be helping him.

And yes, that was a fantastic play by Gimenez. Consistently great defense is so valuable to a contending team.

Fisher should really be used in higher leverage situations right now.

Why did Fisher have to be replaced after 0.2 IP and seven pitches?

Had to save Chad Green for the key moment I guess.

coulda kept lauer in. coulda kept fisher in.

ah well.


chad green may have to be the next one out the door tho, tbh.

John Schneider just seems to make everything harder than it needs to be. With suboptimal results. He seems like a confused man.

Why did Fisher have to be replaced after 0.2 IP and seven pitches?

Who knows...

On the other hand, a five run lead is where you give the back of the bullpen a chance to get some outs.

Adding the most homer prone reliever in baseball at that moment just continues to show Schneider has no idea how to manage a bullpen.

There’s a mixed bag of issues here. On the one hand, Schneider should be cut some slack here because all of Green, Fluharty, Little and Hoffman are actually struggling. He doesn’t have a lot of good options. Having said that, the use of Fisher (one of the few arms really rolling right now) was messed up.

How the hell do you overturn that?

Maybe it’s a US-Canada thing?

That’s how you bullpen-proof a lead.

Turnbull time!

It will be inexcusable if they bring in Rodriguez now.

It should be Schultz for (hopefully) two innings if he's the one getting shipped out for Scherzer. Huge swing for the bullpen.

Still can't believe they overturned that. Holy. New york has no shame.

No sooner do I say that and he had Rodriguez warming.

Has not had

Unbelievable.

So he takes Fisher out after 7 pitches for no reason. Then when the Jays extend the lead, instead of keeping Green in the game in a spot that’s more appropriate for him, he goes to another RP which forces him to use Yariel in a 5 run game:

Absolute masterclass in how to mismanage a bullpen. How much of this is Schneider or the front office has to be questioned at this point. Montoyo was equally baffling with bullpen decisions.

Classic John Schneider. With Scherzer pitching tomorrow on a pitch limit, the Blue Jays get a great starting pitching performance, score 10 runs and amass a big lead over the opposition, and the manager burns through five relievers, including three high-leverage ones.

That sums it up nicely.

The Fisher usage was a mess (mostly he shouldn’t have been used there in the first place). I thought pulling Green for Schultz was the right call. Using your best leverage reliever tonight was inexcusable.

Nice to get a win here, but wow Schneider's bullpen decisions are atrocious. For the Jays sake I hope Scherzer can give them some length tomorrow night. I don't know how Jays relievers aren't taking turns going on the IL like Dodgers pitchers with how often they are used.

Caleb really tore into Schneider for that on the post game show

Blair & Barker had a Cleveland guy on their show today talking about how the Guardians won't allow a reliever other than Clase to throw 25 pitches in an inning. Schneider used Garcia for 32, 24, and 28 pitches in consecutive appearances.

Bringing Yariel in up 5 is just what Schneider does - managing scared. His reason will be that he was already hot.

Not sure what the issue would be with using Fisher in a 4-1 game.

I’ve been defending Schneider more often than not on bullpen usage this year but his overusing his best leverage guys in low leverage situations is a massive fail.

His reason for using Fisher (the real reason) is that he hasn’t yet realized that, right now, he’s the second best leverage arm that he’s got.

Then when the Jays extend the lead, instead of keeping Green in the game in a spot that’s more appropriate for him, he goes to another RP which forces him to use Yariel in a 5 run game:

Green was throwing meatballs. Even after the 3-HR, everything he was chucking was middle-middle.

Even if you send Green back out for the bottom of 8th, he's not finishing the game. So you were going to need to burn Paxton Schultz for the 9th even if by some miracle Green gets you 5 outs.

The Jays pen just isn't looking great right now. Fluharty might need to be sent down. I've been defending keeping Green for salary reasons alone, but he definitely deserves the Swanson treatment. Brendon Little is wild and runs up pitch counts with every appearance now. Even Yariel got tagged tonight. Sandlin is just coming back. Hoffman seems broken. Schultz needed 30 pitches just to pitch an awful 8th with a 6 run lead.

This pen has suddenly no high trust relievers.

They desperately need some new blood with Garcia and Burr on the way back.

The GM and the VPs aren't making pitching changes. Walker has probably some input but he's not the one calling the shots.

Schneider needs to learn how to “be cool” and give his pitchers some more rope — but without letting them go through arm-shredding innings as he did with Gausman and Yimi earlier this season.

What's interesting is that Schneider's 2026 option was not picked up (unless I missed it), so he's literally fighting for his job this season, which might explain why he manages every game like it's life or death. For him, it might be. There's definitely a strong element of "managing scared".

I assume you're saying Fisher is 2nd only to Yariel right now, but he wasn't going to Hoffman in the 6th so it was Fisher or Little and that's matchup (and bench) dependent.

Yes second to Yuriel. 4-1 in the 6th is medium leverage. I would have thought it was Schultz, Green or Fluharty up first in that situation.

So, if Scherzer goes around 4 innings tomorrow in a somewhat close game, who pitches innings 5-9 for the Blue Jays? I guess Little, Hoffman…probably Yariel and Fisher again as well.

Nah, the circle of trust right now is Hoffman-Rodriguez-Little-Fisher so it was always going to be one of those 4 in the 6th inning of a 4-1 game.

Bases loaded no outs for the Reds vs. Yankees in the bottom of the 11th.

Sandlin will be available tomorrow as well.

Yanks lose.

Love to see the Yankees lose. The Blue Jays are going to win the division.

Rodon has got his career back on track, though. 6 shutout innings tonight and a 2.92 ERA on the season. Let’s see if he can stay healthy.

I’m guessing they’ll use Turnbull if Scherzer can’t give them 5. Once they get past the 5th, and assuming they are either leading or it’s close, then Sandlin, Little, and Hoffman is probably where they go. Since Fisher only threw 7 pitches, he’s probably available as well.

Burr had another clean inning tonight. His 3rd rehab outing. Might be in play for a callup soon.

I have the same opinion of Schneider now as after his first half season as manager. He does not understand timing or momentum and arcs with pitchers. He manages a game not a season and most baffling to me is that the players seem to love him, apparently.

He has hands down mismanaged the bullpen more than any other Blue Jays manager in the 25 or so years I've been watching. I thought he was the perfect manager for this front office because he was a good communicator (code for bullshitter for the GM) which was something Montoyo and Gibbons couldn't or wouldn't do. I remember Carlos Tosca doing things that I felt were done because they just seemed like defensible decisions rather than for strategic reasons.

This season has been his worst with the abuse of Hoffman, Garcia and Gausman. If the Jays are in the playoffs I expect a 4-5 inning or (twice through the order) limit set by Schneider. Maybe I'm hard on him but those pulls from his first playoff games which led to the collapse were just inexcusable.

Two of those four in your circle of trust are pitching poorly and if you have to go to your circle of trust up 3 in the 6th then your circle of trust won’t make it to September. But sure otherwise.

Looks like Jays are trading Colby Martin a converted reliever who throws super hard for Robinson Pina a AAA swingman sort of guy with 1 career innings. I don't consider relievers prospects generally but dislike how much this front office seems to value these 6th starter types. What does Pina give the Jays that Easton Lucas doesn't? I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong and Pina is useful but for me, if you need a starter go get a starter not dabble in this Lucas, Turnbull, Urena, and now Pina pool.

The most valuable thing about Pina potentially is that he's optionable for the next 3 seasons.

If he can provide competitive spot start innings, that's a valuable resource. Just preventing the bullpen days nonsense we've seen for 12 weeks.

That's one advantage over guys like Turnbull or Urena that are out of options. Or even Eric Lauer for that matter.

Lauer has only been valuable (and he has been VERY valuable) because he succeeded right away and has remained successful. But the out of options guys like Turnbull and Urena have to be valuable right off the bat, otherwise they get cut.

And there's nowhere to send them other than back to free agency.

At least with a guy like Pina, you can yank him up and down as needed. And potentially has 2.5 years to show if he has anything.

That being said, if they are just going to use him as another low velo sinkerball middle reliever, meh.

Huh. I guess his stuff isn't great but in general Pina's track record is the type i'd have been excited about as an under the radar guy if he was in our system.

A (20): 26gms, 4.2ip/gm, 30.7k%, 100era-, 85fip-, 90xfip- (age aprop.)

Covid (21)

A (22): 4gms, 5.7ip/gm, 37.5k%, 6.8b%, 35era-, 70fip-, 65xfip- (old)
A+ (22): 13gms, 4.4ip/gm, 34.6k%, 16.7b%, 100era-, 97fip-, 95xfip- (slightly old)
AA (22): 4gms, 3.8ip/gm, 28.6k%, 11.7b%, 230era-, 212fip-, 122xfip- (age aprop)

A+ (23): 18gms, 4.5ip/gm, 34.9k%, 7.2b%, 84era-, 72fip-, 75xfip- (old)
AAA (23): 3gms, 1.2ip/gm, 18.5k%, 25.9b%, 539era-, 394fip-, 209xfip- (age aprop)

A+ (24): 8gms, 1.4ip/gm, 40.0k%, 8.9b%, 19era-, 45fip-, 59xfip- (Old)
AA (24): 19gms, 3.3ip/gm, 22.7k%, 11.7b%, 72era-, 81fip-, 88xfip- (old)
AAA (24): 7gms, 3.3ip/gm, 11.7k%, 17.5b%, 136era-, 127fip-, 235xfip- (slightly old)

Traded to PHI

AA (25): 19gms, 5.3ip/gm, 25.3k%, 3.1b%, 95era-, 86fip-, 81xfip- (old)
AAA (25): 6gms, 4.8ip/gm, 19.4k%, 10.9b%, 102era-, 110fip-, 103xfip- (old)

Signed by MIA

AAA (26): 13gms, 4.4ip/gm, 22.2k%, 6.2b%, 79era-, 83fip-, 93xfip-
MLB (26): 1gms, 1.0ip/gm, 0.0k%, 0.0b%, 215era-, 394fip-, 148xfip-


None of his teams seem to have taken him too seriously, holding him back at and making him repeat lower levels despite having promotion worthy numbers. They didn't even bother taking a real look at him as a reliever. Didn't help that he got beat up in each of his first stints in AA, AAA, and MLB.

But the numbers look like they have potential, especially considering they mostly come as a starter. Not sure why none of his teams gave him a serious look as a reliever tho - his 93 fastball / 83 slider repertoire would seem to be the kind to play up out of the bullpen.

I like the add tbh.

Hmm and now twitter tells me he's got a plus splitter. Even better.