20 hours Ago By Rob Longley
Article content The Blue Jays were never going to get too high or too low about the opening seven-game series that concluded early Wednesday evening at the Rogers Centre. Publicly, anyway. But going 5-2 through the first seven games of a season with so much on the line is compounded in a good way by the manner in which it was achieved and the pressure relieved for a team that took last year’s 74-88 record with a heavy dose of frustration.
Not to be dismissed is the fact that a team that has notoriously been uneven coming out of the starting gate in recent seasons has jumped out with a swift first seven strides. In fact, it’s the first time they have won five of their first seven games since 2011 and as any long-time Jays supporter is all too aware, there has been plenty of good, bad and ugly since. “It’s nice when it unfolds the way you envision it, right?” manager John Schneider said Wednesday prior to his team’s 4-2 win over the Washington Nationals in a getaway day matinee at the Rogers Centre.
“It doesn’t always happen that way and there’s going to be times where it ebbs and flows, for sure. “I don’t want to say I expected it to run perfectly, but I expected the guys to really handle (the start of the season) well because of the type of people they are. I feel like everyone has a pretty good idea of what we’re expecting of them and so far, so good.
” Indeed, there’s plenty to like so far, given that the leading power bats in the lineup — Vlad Guerrero Jr. and Anthony Santander — have mostly been silent and the team already has lost an important rotation arm in Max Scherzer. But the points that were stressed in Dunedin have carried north to Toronto, where the team has found a way to manufacture runs relatively regularly.
The 12-hit attack in a 5-3 win over the Nationals on Tuesday was one thing. Taking advantage of an inferior opponent like the most recent visitor was another, given it can certainly be argued that the Jays have lacked a killer instinct for quite some time now. And then there’s the personnel.
While it wasn’t a blockbuster off-season in terms of landing the biggest names, is it possible that at least the pieces acquired are providing important contributions? One veteran player who was considerably irked with the 2024 season and doesn’t mind telling you so, certainly believes it. “It was always the plan (to play this way),” starting pitcher Chris Bassitt told the Sun on Wednesday. “It was just that we didn’t have the people to kind of put the plan in place.
But now we do.” Bassitt didn’t care to elaborate, but you don’t have to let that comment ferment long to understand what he is getting at. If the team is better defensively and has more versatility in its offensive lineup, it’s much easier to come up with a more complete effort.
“They all play good defence. They all run the bases the right way,” Bassitt said of what he likes about his teammates. “As long as our starters take care of what we need to do, we have a really good bullpen.
We have a little bit of everything. “It’s good that you get rewarded for playing the game the way we want to play it and we’re kind of getting proof that if we play the game the way we think we need to play it, we’re going to win a lot of games.” The rest of the month isn’t going to be easy, but at least there’s an opportunity to exhale on an off day in New York before the Jays face the National League Mets on Friday in the first of a three-game series and the beginning of a 13 games in 13 days grind.
In that mix is the added burden of a nine-game road trip through New York, Boston and Baltimore. There are still things to clean up — there almost always is with any team. But when the offence is as evenly distributed as it has been and little things are taken care of — both defensively and on the base paths — good things can happen.
What a concept. On Wednesday, it was lefty Easton Lucas making his first career start count with five scoreless innings earning him a “way to step up” compliment from injured veteran Scherzer afterwards, a gesture that clearly meant a lot to the 28-year-old Californian. There was George Springer, the highest-paid player on the team, continuing his resurgence with his first homer of the season.
And there was extending a winning streak to four games. “A 5-2 home stand is awesome,” Schneider said. “And sweeping anybody is really tough to do.
Every team is good and you’ve got to take it a series at a time, but I love the way they’re going about it.”.
