Shane Bieber will throw two innings for the FCL Jays on Monday.

Nathan Lukes has a day off today and then will play for Dunedin both days of the weekend. Then the Jays were figure out if the is ready to be activated.

Interesting looking at FanGraphs leaders for the Jays hitters - bottom by fWAR at -0.3 is a 4 way tie: Springer, Heineman, Schneider, Sosa. Ugh. Varsho #1 at 1.2 fWAR with 0.0 runs from defense (!), Gimenez #2 with 5 runs via defense (0.9), tied for 2nd is Valenzuela 0 for offense, but 5.2 on defense. Then comes Okomoto, Vlad, and Clement as the 0.5+ guys.

It is interesting, but still early for stat leaders. More fun to see, extremes normally indicate something, such as Sosa not being a ML hitter right now. I get that he has raw talent, but at some point if you want to win you need to cut bait on him.

Kirky's gonna have to teach Valenzuela about blocking.

Ernie does like that high pitch doesn’t he.

Meanwhile Jesus Sanchez just loves any pitch that’s below his knees it seems.

Huge hit from Sanchez there. I would have PH with Straw there and bunted.

kinda feels like Varland has the chance to our best RP in a very, very long time.

Big hit from Springer to save Varland from more work.

Man. Valenzuela is rather green in some aspects of his game (the blocking as recently noted for instance) but the tools are there without question and the quality of the at bats have gradually been much better, he looks much more under control. If he can continue to refine those little parts of his game… there’s a very good big league catcher.

Right on cue, gets his first big league steal (this has also been a very quirky inning).

You trusted Yariel over Hoffman against the Yankees in a 2-run game with runners on, but he can’t come in now to a 4-run game after Varland has already thrown 15 pitches? This feels a bit like conceding tomorrow’s game tonight.

Funnily enough, that's pretty much what the radio crew was theorizing. With Skenes going tomorrow, locking down tonight's win became paramount.

looking ahead at the schedule I just went ahead and penciled in Saturday for a loss. Sometimes I'm wrong (I had figured the Cease game in NY for a win) but I do sympathize with the idea of try extra hard to win the other two because that's an uphill climb

John ran through the injury update list earlier but I didn't keep up past Bieber and Lukes. What did he say on the rest of them?

Totally wanted to lock this one in and so did Louis.
Tomorrow they get Hoff. Fish and Rogers back.

The Yankees just blew their lead and the Rays won again.

Fun game.

Only 3 games under. 500 now which is amazing considering how bad this offense has been. Valuenzuela is very impressive. Occasional dumb mistakes but he's already an elite defender and he has some pop. Fangraphs has him at 9th in catcher WAR with half the PAs of most guys ahead of him.

Valenzuela has really made Atkins look smart - not bad for Will Wagner (hitting 212/382/269 in the PCL).

As to ensuring todays win no matter what - makes sense as Corbin vs Skenes seems a mismatch on paper. But baseball being what it is we might see Corbin go 6 shutout innings and Skenes get knocked out in the first. Very, very unlikely. But weirder things happen.

Springer looked a lot better today both hitting and running.

Vlad continues to be effective at nearly everything except hitting the home runs. Still an effective and good player, but somehow less than the sum of his parts and not the heroic Vlad from end of last year we all crave.

Varland coming in for the 8th when the game was on the line made a lot of sense. I'd leave him in for the 9th when it was tight, but after the extra runs in the bottom of the 8th, I'd have pulled him for possibly tomorrow or just more rested later. But I'd rather leave in our best pitcher to pitch more, than not use him at all (like if someone dumbly thought he was the save guy so could only come in for the 9th).

Louis Varland is giving me Duane Ward vibes in both a good and bad way. Varland is one of the 7 relievers with at least 25 appearances and the only one of those 7 with more IP's than games.

Like with Ward, it's fantastic to have a dominant rubber-armed high leverage arm. But Ward is also a cautionary tale - suffered a rotator cuff injury he never truly recovered from. Can't help thinking the usage played at least some part, maybe a large part, in ending his career before he turned 30.

TamRa, here is Sportsnet with updates on Yimi and Kirk.

https://www.sportsnet.ca/mlb/article/blue-jays-provide-injury-updates-on-bieber-kirk-garcia/

Sadly as a fan, if Varland can do the rubber arm all of 2026 and get us a WS title then blows his arm out ala Ward as a fan I'd be happy still. I'd feel for Varland like I did for Ward, but a title is what we want and those are rare. Still, the Jays should be careful as Varland is under team control for a long time (through 2030) which means more shots at glory than just 2026.

Sounds like everyone could be back by July 1st with luck. Max time on a rehab assignment is 30 days iirc. Kirk will be less, Bieber could push the limit to get his pitch count up.

Yeah, that's a cold take on Varland, June.

Winning it all means a lot less to me than it does to most people.2 scenarios.

Jays go 82-80, squeak into the playoffs and win it all, becoming the worst team ever to win the WS.

Jays go 117-45. and lose like we did last year to the Dodgers.

Which season would you enjoy more? Unlike most people, I'd actually chose the latter.

Ask Seattle and St Louis - the Mariners won 116 games and lost in the ALCS 4-1, St Louis won 83 in '06 and snuck in and won it all. Each has its fun, but nothing reaches being the last team standing. Last year was a blast but will always feel lacking due to being 2 outs, or 2 inches, short. Can't help but imagine Kirk hitting a homer to win it instead of a DP to end it.

A lot is made of the extra playoff gates generating the money for Rogers, but really it's the attendance spike mid June when school gets out, hockey gets over and and attendance/interest peaks. If the team is bad like it was in '17, '18, '19 and 24, those remaining 50 home games are usually big attendance losses. Whereas last year, from about Canada Day onwards the Jays had sellouts in the majority of their games, which...I'm no mathematician or business major but that has the account for the most revenue generated.

The Mariners and Cards were why chose those records. I'm also one of the few who haven't cut my cable, so I get to watch most every game. Watching my team win 35 more games will provide me far more entertainment over the course of a year than winning that final game.

If I were a player and not just a fan, then yes, winning it all would be the only goal, no matter how many regular season losses.

I actually think the Jays might eclipse last year's win total, which sounds pretty nuts. But if you consider the fact they didn't hit .500 until May 29th (28-28) against Oakland, and that was with a healthy roster. This year, they might be able to get to .500 by the end of May with an underachieving offense, average starting pitching and a ton of injuries. Lot's to be positive about, especially with Springer starting to warm up and a lot of depth and production coming in the next couple weeks.

Hypo, I never cut my cable either and I'm happy I didn't. I will gladly pay a little extra to have full access to the Jays, NBA Playoffs (which, in the U.S. is a nightmare to try and find) and NFL (which I don't watch a ton of, but again, is very difficult and expensive to follow if you don't have cable).
Even watching other MLB games (if you're a Tiger fan in Canada, a some of their games are aired locally on the FOX affiliate) and Sportsnet/TSN air a ton of games their channels. The MLB package through Bell is actually much cheaper than the MLBTV streaming package as well.

A lot is made of the extra playoff gates generating the money for Rogers, but really it's the attendance spike mid June

The Jays somewhat unsurprisingly are leading the MLB in attendance boost so far in 2026. Their attendance numbers are up about 12k fans compared to 2025 (presumably in comparison to YoY year-to-date, considering their 2025 spring would've had typical softer attendance given spring games, mediocre performance & an awful 2024 showing. And this 2026 boost comes in the context of a similarly inconsistent sub .500 team without a lot of premium home opponents (no Yankees, ?Red Sox once, ?Dodgers once).

You let Corbin go a third time through the order?

(I would. He’s dealing… though with some pen activity just in case the command starts to be a little less precise)

The thing that's different this year is the ABS.
We had many games last year in which the ump calls tilted the outcome in a bad way.
Remember that lost in Boston?

It's worked pretty well so far this year.

What an AB from Sanchez. He’s such a weird look but the man has been doing his job hitting RHP.

Almost feels like the team felt as annoyed/upset about losing those first two winnable games vs the Yanks as we did.

The mood has suddenly shifted.

Corbin decisively outpitching Skenes, just like we all expected.

There's always uncertainty, but I can't recall a bullpen that I've had greater confidence in.

The K box on Cruz is so obviously calibrated wrong, and points to a problem with ABS. The top of the zone is below his belt. Thankfully the ump called it like the rulebook.

Gabe i agree about the pen. Lots os lots of confidence. When Hoffman is the most worrisome one that's a very good pen.

Combine that with how good yesavage/cease/gausman look and with a potential bieber return and there's pots to be hopeful about.

Yank him for christ's sake.

Probably would’ve let Macko keep going with the lefties up and a three run lead…. Let’s see.

When Hoffman has THAT splitter working though, he can face any lefty he wants….

Hoffman as sometime-not-designated-closer might work.

The K box on Cruz is so obviously calibrated wrong, and points to a problem with ABS. The top of the zone is below his belt. Thankfully the ump called it like the rulebook.

I thought the actual official strikezone was overhauled this season to coincide with the ABS implementation?

Either that the zone was standardized to be the same regardless of batter height or stance. Or that the way that the zone was measured electronically was different than the old rulebook zone based on physiognomy.

I recall seeing a table earlier in the season which had "Winners & Losers" players based on the way the new zone was calibrated. On the whole, I was under the impression that the new rulebook digital strikezone shrunk for almost everyone.

The ABS zone is 27% of a player's height to 53.5%.

Umps were always having problem calling the zone properly on really short guys like Altuve or really tall guys like Judge. This only brings consistency. 

The Angels DFAed Romano over 6 weeks ago and apparently haven't had a save opportunity since.

The "winners and Losers" were the height measurements, which were done officially (like the NBA Draft Combine). Some players for years have been listed up to 3 inches taller than their true heights. Previously 6 foot tall Bo Naylor is actually 5'9"

Jays in a 3 way tie for the 3rd wild card at the moment, 1 1/2 behind the 2nd, 5 back of the Yankees who hold the #1 WC slot. 10 1/2 behind the hot Rays. Since 2009 the rule is never underestimate the Rays - too many assumed they'd flop this year with so many strong teams in the East. Go figure. O's and Red Sox fighting for the basement, 2 1/2 behind the Jays thus 13 behind Tampa. Baseball is weird isn't it?

Btw, Angels are dead last in MLB, Detroit and Colorado not far off (2 games ahead of the LAA). Wonder if this will be the year the Angels finally say 'screw it' and trade Trout.

If they didn't trade Othani, why would they trade Trout?
He draws the attendance.

scottt - I was ready to laugh at that, as studies have shown that individual players don't drive attendance, wins do. But maybe you are right - despite sucking hard the Angels are 3rd in attendance this year (behind the Jays and Yankees) and Trout and Soriano are the only reasons to go watch a LAA game IMO. Weird and sad. Trout might go his entire career getting into only 1 playoff series that his team was swept in (2014, lost ALDS 3-0 to the Royals, Trout just 1 for 12). Imagine if 2020 was it for Vlad in the playoffs - he was just 1 for 7, his first 3 playoffs were ugly (3 for 22, 2 singles and a double) before last years legendary playoffs (397/494/795). Sad that Ohtani now has 2 titles and Trout still sits on 0 playoff wins.

I've never seen these studies, but I remember a similar argument here years ago. One of us went back through Roy Halladay starts and pointed out attendance wasn't any better in those games than other games that season.

So individual players may not cause attendance to go up, but getting rid of a star player may well cause attendance to go down. Halladay was traded and attendance dropped over 20% in 2010 despite the team winning 10 more games than in 2009 and having Jose's magical 54 HR's.

I'm sure the Halladay trade drove away many that felt the Jays were giving up and if the Jays give up, they'll give up too.

one thing I'll say with confidence (obviously):

The Rays aren't going to flirt with .700 ball the whole season.

On the other hand, they could go 56-57 the rest of the way and still win 90.

Jesus Sanchez quietly has a 117 WRC+ in May. He looked like maybe odd man out a few weeks ago but now, I don't know who is, but doesn't seem to be Sanchez.

Left bat with platoon number is great.
If only they could find a right bat who can hit lefties.
I think Tirotta might be good at that but it seems it's Lantigua who's most likely to get a shot.

Would not be surprised of Sanchez' good numbers in May are simply from not playing vs LHP anymore.

Sanchez has a 127 wRC+ against RHP. If he's used in a strict platoon then he will be valuable. They really need to get a RHB who can mash LHP (or two) on the bench.

I predict the Rays will finish 2nd and without McClanahan or Rasmussen by the time the season finishes. I'm more concerned about the NYY who I imagine will add to their bullpen and trade for someone like CJ Abrams while running out a playoff rotation of Cole, Fried, Schitler and Rodon.

Trout is due 37M every year and has been quite brittle of late, so I don't see a team offering a load of prospects for him.
The Angels just need to draft better and spend their money better.

The Rays are 19-5 at the Trop.
There's something wrong with that place.

I saw an article yesterday where someone from the Yankees likened this year's Bay Rays team to last year's Blue Jays, especially how the bottom of the order is a hassle to deal with.

I have never seen a player take himself out of a game as quickly as Vlad did right there. Very unusual.

Of course the Jays lose Cease and Guerrero in the same game.

The vibes were good for a day or two there.

Gerry, I just said the same thing to my wife - I can't ever recall a player so quickly and decisively leaving the game after being hit by a pitch. I can't imagine any positive news coming out of this, only bad or terrible. I wouldn't be surprised if we see someone leave the Bisons today to join us (they are in Syracuse)... maybe Charles McAdoo. /

Vlad x-rays are negative they said. Contusion. 

Okamoto needs to make some new adjustments. He had a hot streak after stepping back in the box. But took a look at the splits... (small sample noise and all).
Hitting .199 vs rhp on the season. That's a problem.
Not hitting on the road much.
2/32 batting 5th. Is it a coincidence? Timed with his worst slumps, certain types of pitchers, before or after the hot streak?

Hopefully someone with advanced data access can look more closely to see if there's anything clear.
Contact looks like it will be an issue but Chapman offensively with more power and worse defense seems very doable

Okamoto 1/20 last 6 games 13k
Last 15 days 5/46 2 2b 4bb 21k
May 205/289/452 better than April 200/280/322.

That recent streak is unplayable.

Days 16-30 ago
16/50 8/13 bb/k 1 2b 7 HR.

That amd few march games are his whole season.

Found it interesting when they mentioned McAdoo is playing at 2B now in AAA. Guessing the Jays are getting ready to give Sosa the boot soon. McAdoo's 823 OPS in AAA is a lot better than Sosa's sub 500. Already plays 3B/1B/LF/RF (over 100 innings at each in his career) and now working at 2B (92 innings before today). Could be a very useful all-around super-sub if his bat is real and glove OK.

McAdoo came from the Pirates in exchange for IKF.
IKF then begged Atkins to get him out of Pittsburgh.
Unfortunately his second stint on the Jays wasn't as pleasant as his first.

If he ran a touch faster, or the coaches didn't tell him to stay close to the bag, it would've been a lot more pleasant.

The Jays were not going for the contact play. They were trying to score IKF on a sac fly or a hit.
He ran pretty fast to make it a close play. 
But yeah, I was just highlighting the McAdoo connection.

The Jays were not going for the contact play.

It was a force play at home, so there was no decision on going or not. They were simply too conservative after Barger got doubled off to end game 6.

With less than 2 outs, the decision is to make sure the ball is not caught for a double play.
On a contact play, you go all out and if the ball is caught, you're dead.
If anything, on a play like this, it's on the hitter to run fast enough to beat the throw at first.

The last I heard about McAdoo's glove was that it was stretched at 3B. But I have found that defensive evaluations of prospects are pretty shaky predictors of eventual defensive ability.

Even as his slash line has slipped, McAdoo's exit velocities have improved - perhaps regression on both sides. But the main reason to be optimistic about McAdoo is that he's significantly cut his strikeout rate by making more contact while also drawing more walks. His K:BB ratio has gone from 3:1 last year to 4:3 this year, while moving up a level.

At this point, I'd still prefer to see Kasevich called up to replace Sosa: he makes lots of contact and makes hard contact - too much on the ground, though. And I have much more confidence he can handle second base.

Kevin Gausman
@KevinGausman
·
27m
If the roof is closed tonight we riot

Lukas activated, Davis Schneider optioned.