Toronto Blue Jays third baseman Kazuma Okamoto has been one of the few bright spots through the first six weeks of the baseball season, leading the team in home runs (10) and runs batted in (23).Chris O'Meara/The Associated Press
It is hard to make a case for the Blue Jays at this point, unless it is that they are currently a basket case. They had four straight losses as they headed into Friday night’s contest in Toronto against the Los Angeles Angels – and were a nose hair out of last place in the American League East Division.
These aren’t the darlings of last year who nearly won the World Series. This group seesaws back and forth between promise and peril. Wins four of five, then loses the next four. It has had one six-game losing streak and two four-game loss streaks.
A quarter of the season is nearly in the books and Toronto is 9.5 games behind the first-place New York Yankees and nine back of the surprising Tampa Bay Rays. It has already blown 11 leads and is 3-6 in one-run games.
On Monday, the Rays arrive for three games at Rogers Centre. They just swept the Blue Jays at the new Trop and have won nine of their last 10. Toronto goes to Yankee Stadium for four the week after next. Not a lot of help coming there.
Based on historical data, there have been very few teams that were 9.5 or more games out of a playoff spot after 40 games and still made the postseason.
It is easy enough for optimists to say Toronto is playing at about the same pace as in 2025 – and look how that turned out. Not to say that it couldn’t happen but there is nothing now to hint that it will.
Very little is going right beyond a few bright spots.
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Kazuma Okamoto, the club’s rookie third baseman, hit five home runs during the seven-game road trip, with one 453-footer among them. He leads the club with 10 homers and 23 runs batted in heading into the weekend.
Louis Varland entered Friday with a 0.48 earned-run average in 18 games. Earlier in the week he was named the American League’s top reliever for March and April and has allowed just one earned run with 29 strikeouts in 18 2/3 innings.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is earning an average of nearly US$36-million per season and has just two home runs, same as Myles Straw, and one fewer than rookie catcher Brandon Valenzuela. Valenzuela has 50 at-bats; Guerrero has 135.
He is becoming more of a Luis Arraez type of hitter – high average but very little power – and for the team to have any chance of climbing high in the standings, that has to change.
Ernie Clement is being Ernie Clement, and Dylan Cease and Kevin Gausman have been excellent, but a raft of injuries has badly depleted the pitching staff and the daily lineup.
George Springer is hobbling around on a broken toe and has never really been healthy enough for long enough to look like himself.
Addison Barger – only 1-for-19 so far – will rejoin the club before Saturday’s engagement with the Angels. Most recently he suffered injuries to both of his ankles at the same time. It is most likely that Davis Schneider, batting .132, will be shipped to Triple-A Buffalo to make room for him.
In 53 at-bats, Tyler Heineman is yet to have an extra-base hit.
And pitcher Trey Yesavage has been good so far – but that is measured over just two starts. He just recently returned to the club after a spectacular 2025 postseason.
So far it hasn’t hurt the Blue Jays at the gate. They are fourth in the major leagues in average attendance at 40,016 over 18 home games and first year over year with 12,282 more fans clicking through the turnstiles.
They are still so enamoured with the 2025 version of the club to notice that the club is barely plodding along right now.