TORONTO — The Toronto Blue Jays want to use the season’s remaining games to climb out of last in the American League East. Given how this season began, with playoff aspirations, surpassing the fourth-place Tampa Bay Rays may seem like a modest goal.
The Blue Jays have acknowledged that 2024 didn’t play out how they imagined and the disappointment still stings. But, since the trade deadline, the club has embraced the reality they played themselves into. In the second half, the priority has been evaluating young players to see how they fit for 2025, but of course, the team aims to win, too.
“I hate looking at the standings and seeing where we are, at the bottom in our division,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider said. “The goal really doesn’t change — it’s trying to win as many games as you can and where you end up you end up, but I think that would be nice.”
This weekend’s sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals, completed with Sunday’s 3-2 victory, will help Toronto’s effort to climb out of the division basement. “Sweeping a team is really hard, no matter who it is, but it takes a lot of focus, and the guys did that today,” the Blue Jays manager said.
The Blue Jays currently trail the Rays by one win and they have a three-game series against the division rivals next weekend. Schneider said they aren’t adding extra weight to that series, but the club does appreciate having internal goals to guide them for the remainder of the season.
“There are teams that we’ve played where I think we’ve out-energied them if that’s the right word, and I’m really proud of that, and the guys are taking a lot of pride in it,” Schneider said. “I don’t think that that puts more weight on the series, but I think the focus is just to continue to play well and do something meaningful every day to help us win.”
Here are two more Blue Jays takeaways.
On May 31, Davis Schneider looked on his way to a productive season, hitting .245 with a .824 OPS and seven home runs.
But then the left-fielder entered a prolonged slump. From June 1 to Sept. 8, Schneider hit .152 with a .455 OPS. He had just nine extra-base hits in that span and went 24 games without an RBI. It was a long cold spell and it saw Schneider’s batting average sink to .191 this past week.
However, Schneider has gone 6-for-15 in his past five games with three extra-base hits and seven RBIs including home runs on Saturday and Sunday. His home run on Saturday snapped a 54-game home-run drought and he’s raised his season average 10 points in the process.
Davis Schneider gives the Blue Jays the lead! 💥 pic.twitter.com/1MNDSn2sEP
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) September 15, 2024
Behind the scenes, Schneider had been steadily working to find a way out of his funk. Teammates, including Chris Bassitt, credited him for his tireless work ethic, which includes arriving at the ballpark first every day, as well as his cheerful mood, even when he wasn’t performing how he wanted to. Over the past week, all the hard work has finally paid off.
“He’s been great. I think the guys have been great with him, and you can just see him get a little bit more confident in the box,” John Schneider said. “(His mood has) been good the whole time, as rough as it had been for him, but I think that the welcoming aspect of the team has helped him, too. But he’s been great the last couple of days.”
Ending the season on an encouraging note would be a positive for Davis Schneider, but overall, this will go down as an uneven, disappointing season for the utility man, who has shown a tendency for hot and cold stretches over his two MLB seasons.
Depending on the moves the front office makes over the offseason, Schneider may be part of a crowded infield picture next spring. The club’s rookies, including middle infielders Will Wagner and Leo Jimenez, have shown promise, both as defenders and at the plate. Spencer Horwitz has the second-highest OPS on the team (min. 200 PAs), while Ernie Clement has authored a career season. Orelvis Martinez, who remains the club’s top prospect, will enter camp as another option.
That makes it all the more important that Schneider re-establishes himself as one of the team’s potent power hitters so he can continue to carve out a role. His past few games have reminded us of his potential. The goal now will be finishing the season strong and carrying it into next year.
Before September, Chad Green was a perfect 16-for-16 in save opportunities. But in the past 15 days, the reliever has hit his first rough patch of the season. Before Sunday, in his past five appearances, Green had given up 11 earned runs on nine hits, including two home runs, with three walks and four strikeouts. In those five outings, he’s blown three saves and taken another loss. So what’s up with Green?
“Baseball — (the) life of a reliever, you know?” John Schneider said. “I think his slider is not getting exactly where he wants it to get it consistently but you chalk it up to the life of a reliever pitching in leverage his whole life, basically.”
The Kyle Schwarber game 😤
5-for-6
3 HR
6 RBI
4 R
15 TB pic.twitter.com/5QoF22bwd9— MLB (@MLB) September 4, 2024
Against the Cardinals on Sunday, Green entered in the ninth for the one-run save and allowed a leadoff single to Luken Baker, but retired the next two batters and worked around an awkward soft single from Thomas Saggese to get Jordan Walker to pop out for the final out. Schneider remarked that he liked how Green “stopped the inning from getting crazy.”
“I thought his fastball had really, really good life. His slider was better, too,” the Blue Jays manager said. “I know there was a hit on the slider to Baker, but I thought it was down in the zone much more than it had been and had a little bit better shape, as opposed to going a little bit more east and west. I thought he looked like him.”
Even before Sunday, the Blue Jays weren’t putting too much stock into this trouble spot for Green, who still has a 3.42 ERA in 50 innings with 44 strikeouts. However, Green has some concerning underlying numbers, including an average exit velocity of 91.8 mph and a 48.5 percent hard-hit rate, which rank in the bottom one and two percentile league-wide, respectively, per Statcast. He’s been outperforming his expected ERA, but is this latest stretch a sign that his luck has run out?
“There was a time when he was rolling and he was getting some luck there, too, and there was a time where he was rolling and he was just rolling. So I think it’s just the law of averages a little bit, but the fact that he’s done it for his whole career, it gives you confidence in giving him the ball. But it happens. It happens to relievers, especially relievers that are pitching in this division year after year,” Schneider said.
Green’s 50 innings pitched are the most he’s thrown since 2021 after he missed much of the previous two seasons because of Tommy John surgery in 2022. But Schneider didn’t believe fatigue factored into his latest struggles.
Even with his not-so-great stretch, Green has been invaluable to a bullpen that’s had high turnover due to injuries and underperformance. Rebuilding the bullpen and taking it from 28th in the majors, per ERA, back to at least league average, if not better, will be one of the priorities this offseason. But Green is signed through next season for $10.5 million, so, barring a trade, he will be one of the few holdovers who will be back next year.
(Photo of Davis Schneider: Chris Young / The Canadian Press via Associated Press)
