Toronto Blue Jays Lead AL East; Yankees and Red Sox Trail

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00:00As it stands right now, Toronto is second in the American League East, or Boston, pardon,

00:05is second in the American League East, or five back of the Toronto Blue Jays, who are atop the

00:09division. The Yankees are a half game back of the Boston Red Sox. Yankees have won six of the last

00:1310. They were hot before Boston came to town. Boston five and five over the last 10. I want to

00:18start with Toronto and then get to what happened over the weekend in Yankees Red Sox, because you

00:23just got a live look at Toronto in Miami for just baseball day at Lone Depot Park, which was awesome.

00:28Thank you for coming out to that. They are insanely gritty. It really didn't register for me

00:35how nauseating it must be to face the Toronto Blue Jays until I just watched them uninterrupted for

00:41three games this weekend. Really, really deep team. And you got a live look at Shane Bieber. So I'm

00:48really excited for us to dive into him. The addition to that, to the rotation, because we can even start

00:53with the rotation now, they had Gosman, they had Burrios, Bassett has been struggling, and Eric

01:00Lauer has been incredible. But they could certainly have used an ace at the top of the rotation. And the

01:05Blue Jays were one of the only teams to actually go get an ace caliber pitcher. They really were the

01:10only one during this deadline getting Shane Bieber. But there was a risk there. Bieber hasn't had a start

01:17since the beginning of 2024. What are you gonna get for him? Right? I think it was April 2nd 2024 was 507 days

01:25between starts. And look what he did six innings, one run, nine strikeouts. Yeah, and that Marlins offense is

01:34frisky. That's not some easy, easy matchup, especially on the road in Miami. What did you see? I saw a guy that like

01:42really didn't skip a beat after missing a year and a half because of Tommy John surgery. And that is the

01:47vague and overarching way of putting it. The more in depth way of putting it is secondaries are never

01:53that good on the heels of Tommy John surgery. Sometimes you see the velocity tick more often

01:58than not, you see the velocity tick because you're feeling a little bit more fresh and you feel like

02:02your maximum output is a bit higher with a new ligament. But what you are missing is the feel of that

02:09previous one. I don't know how to describe it. It's almost like a, I don't think golf gloves do

02:15this. It's almost like wearing new work gloves where like you're so accustomed to the feel of

02:20something when you're doing landscaping, then all of a sudden you get new gloves and it's like,

02:23oh, I got to adjust the feel here. Or you know what it is? It's driving a new car. That's exactly

02:28what the comp is. Because I've been driving a Jetta for the last eight years. Car got totaled in September

02:35of 2022. And I test drove a bunch of different cars. Like I tried a Nissan, I tried a Honda,

02:40I tried a Toyota, and it just didn't feel like a Jetta. So then I went back to the VW spot and I was

02:46like, I want a Jetta. And I just did that because it felt like what it used to feel like.

02:53For Shane Bieber, for everybody coming off of Tommy John surgery, you're throwing with a new UCL,

02:58the feel of your secondaries, your breaking balls, your change-ups, your splits, like it's just going

03:02to be a little different because you're effectively throwing with a new elbow on.

03:06And he looked like he was throwing with his old UCL. He was throwing with his old elbow and he just

03:11happened to be up two, three ticks. He was sitting about 92, 93. He was pulsing it up to about 94.

03:18And the slider was disgusting. Everything that came out of his hand looked perfectly executed.

03:24That was as impressive a start coming back from Tommy John surgery as I think there's ever been.

03:29And not only is that enormous for the rest of the regular season, but luckily for the Blue Jays,

03:34they already have a five-game lead. So even if they never added Shane Bieber,

03:39and what I mean by that is if you couldn't make any more starts in the regular season,

03:42he was just for the playoffs, they'd be fine. But now every fifth day, you're getting an ace-caliber

03:48pitcher. And then when we get to the postseason where starting pitching is as important as ever,

03:53now Gosman is the two. Now Burrios is the three versus them being the one-two. So the Jays get

03:59really scary, not only in the regular season, but even scarier in the playoffs. I want to use your

04:05car analogy for the lineup. Yeah. The Yankees have a Ferrari in Aaron Judge, right? But the Blue Jays

04:13have seven BMWs. Mm-hmm. With Vladimir Guerrero Jr. possibly being the Porsche, maybe not quite the

04:22Ferrari, but in the same breath, Bo Bichette is leading Major League Baseball in hits. Dalton

04:28Varshow, since he came back from injury, has put up a 133 WRC+, which means he's 33% better than

04:35league average. The Blue Jays typically have a solid lineup, but this is the deepest it has ever been.

04:41Only at the bottom of the lineup are you seeing two guys in Nathan Lucas and Andres Jimenez who are

04:47below 100, which means they are below a league average hitter. But that's okay when, of course,

04:53Andres Jimenez is a platinum glove level defender. So there's no real outs in the lineup. They're a

04:58great base running team. They're a good defensive team. And that's why I liked the term you used.

05:05They are a nuisance. The Brewers are a nuisance. It's this brand of baseball that's just

05:10overwhelming to other teams. And it's a big reason why the Blue Jays are a top.

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