00:00Look, it's been a long stream, but that intro is my favorite of the ones that we have here,
00:17so I have to talk Blue Jays. Although, a little bit frustrating for the Toronto Blue Jays this
00:22weekend in a series against the New York Yankees. The season starts with a lot of optimism. Well,
00:27it didn't necessarily. They lost 12-2 to the Orioles. But then after that, they won 8-2,
00:30and then they lost by a bunch again. But now, then they beat up on a bunch of teams that aren't as
00:34good as they are, and maybe they catch the Baltimore Orioles at a bad time. And hey, look at this,
00:39maybe this Blue Jays team is something. But this weekend was a reminder of just the level of mid
00:44that we are dealing with with this Toronto Blue Jays team right now. The offense is the problem.
00:49There's no question about that. They get three hits, one run against the Yankees in that second
00:53game. They have a doubleheader on Sunday, and they score three times in the entirety of it.
00:57Now, they got 11 hits in the one, so that's great. But again, the margin of error for this team is
01:02just so small when you have to just string hit after hit after hit after hit after hit together.
01:08We can have a discussion about how maybe baseball has gotten too heavy on the home run, and especially
01:14since, like, they unjuiced the balls and everything like that. But it is still, with the high level of
01:20pitching that we have in this league right now, it is still really hard to just string nine hits
01:26together to be able to score three runs in an inning. Sometimes it's nice when you can just
01:30score two with one swing, and the Blue Jays just don't have enough of that. I do think Vladdy will
01:35turn that on like he did as the weather warmed up a little bit. Santander, this is kind of in the
01:40path that he has followed his whole career. I do, I get frustrated by it a little bit. There was a
01:46story up on sportsnet.ca on Friday, being like, the start for the, the start for Anthony Santander
01:53shouldn't concern Blue Jays fans. Like, man, it's been 25 games. Like, at some point, I'm allowed to
01:59be concerned. And the stat was that last year, from May 1st on, Santander hit 40 home runs,
02:06which is a lot. And so if you could do that here, then I will forget about it, for sure. But I do think
02:10that at some point, I'm allowed to be a little concerned about what's happening with my baseball
02:14team and the offense here. Because it's just, it is, he was brought in to fix this problem.
02:19The problem is persisting. Fix it! And if, and it's another thing, and it has driven me mad the whole
02:27time. And I get, I get it. He was not brought in to help this team in April. He was helped this team,
02:33brought in to help this team get to October. So I don't want to say, change everything so that you can
02:39peak for April, and you're begged by the time August comes around. But if this has been a problem your
02:44whole career, why can we not adjust it a little bit? You know? Like, and again, he hit 40 home runs
02:51from May on. So I could be coming back on here in a month being like, yeah, well, missed that one on
02:55Santander. He's been great. Shouldn't have been concerned at all. But I just feel like if you have
02:58had a specific problem for a long time, and you're just like, ah, well, ends justify the means.
03:04Or we could figure out how to be good that whole time. Just a, just a thought. But no,
03:08the offense isn't good enough. And the problem is, the concerning part of it is, is that there
03:13isn't, there isn't a reinforcement coming. You know? Like, um, in times past, it was maybe like,
03:21hey, well, could, could Vlad get called up? Could have this, could have that, whatever. Or one of
03:24these guys is going to heat up because they had an offense like that. I do think that Bo is,
03:30has been spectacularly unlucky to start this season. And if he keeps hitting the way that he does and
03:35keeps approaching things the way that he does, that it's going to go his way eventually. But
03:39aside from that, like, I'm, I'm not expecting, oh man, you know what? Ernie Clement's going to turn
03:44this thing around. No, Ernie Clement's being Ernie Clement, man. Like a lot of these guys are just
03:47being them. You're getting more than you should out of guys like Heinemann and Straw for some
03:53stretches. That there isn't a, aside from Santander, there isn't that main underperformer that you're
03:59like, okay, well, once that's going, the offense is really going to kick into high gear. It's like,
04:03once he gets going, the offense is only going to be mediocre instead of bad. And that's great.
04:08And this is with Springer getting off to a good start too. And down in the minors, like it's been
04:13miserable weather-wise for the Buffalo Bisons, just the schedule that they have played.
04:17And Arevas Martinez apparently is not a bad weather player because he has been dreadful so far. And that
04:23was kind of the break glass in case of emergency guy that I thought the Blue Jays had, that they could
04:28go to that dude and maybe help the offense out a little bit. But he, like, he's not even, like his
04:36on-base percentage isn't even hitting his weight right now. So there's some concerns there for sure.
04:42So the offense just has to get better. Also, like Schneider, I feel like he has overlearned from
04:47playoff lessons in the past. And I wish he had, the level of patience he had with Gosman and Bassett
04:53in that doubleheader, I wish he had in the playoffs a year or a couple of years ago, because he's
04:59giving his guy some runway now. And I appreciate that. I do. I think that it is too easy for teams
05:05to just get the hook for their starting pitchers and make it a bullpen thing, especially when the
05:09middle part of the bullpen isn't as strong for the Blue Jays. I think that like a quick hook would
05:15be a bad thing, but like I'm in a Blue Jays group chat and they're like, oh man, this game got out of
05:20hand fast. Like it did, but not in a way that wasn't preventable. Like it got out of hand quickly
05:24in that if you look at the box score and it's like 1-0-5, it's like, wow, that escalated fast.
05:29But the inning was just a slow bleed and Schneider just left Gosman in there to do that. And then in
05:34the second game, the same thing happened with Bassett. Now he was able to work out of it.
05:38He pitches with not his best stuff and is able to grind through until Aaron Judge takes him deep,
05:42I think in the sixth. But I think Schneider, there's a balance where, okay, let's not run our
05:49guys too quick. Let's give them a lot of time to work through their issues and let's battle back
05:53that way and let them battle through it that way. And that's fine. You can grow a lot from that.
05:57But there is a point where it's like, no, it's been lost. And I think Schneider hasn't really found
06:02that balance either way yet. So I think the manager did more harm than good this week. But overall with
06:08this Blue Jays team, they just don't feel like they were on the level of the Yankees. Like they get the
06:13win on Friday, but that felt more like the Yankees losing it. Like Williams has the meltdown
06:18and the Jays get a couple of big hits. Aside from that, like the series went how the Yankees went.
06:24And if the Yankees had a bit of a downstretch, then the Blue Jays were able to take advantage.
06:27But once the Yankees got good, the Jays couldn't hold up. And that's where they're at. The Blue Jays
06:32are better than bad teams. And the Blue Jays are worse than good teams. It's just an average ball
06:37club at the moment. And so there are, I think, some needs that need to be addressed for the Toronto
06:42Blue Jays going forward.
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