Davis Schneider was one of two celebratory shower recipients after Wednesday's 4-3 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers.Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press
After narrowly avoiding being swept by the Dodgers on Wednesday, the Blue Jays decided against what has become a customary post-game Gatorade shower. Instead, they settled on two Gatorade showers.
George Springer (two singles) got his first. Then it was Davis Schneider’s turn. Schneider (two walks) was in the midst of an on-field interview and moved to duck his soaking. The would-be showerer, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., sat on the bucket. The crowd jeered. Guerrero urged them to egg him on. They did. Schneider assented. Climax was achieved.
The regularity of this routine is tipping into comedy, and not in a good way. You can already see the strained oblique coming. Why not just have the grounds crew turn the hose on everyone after every game? That way everybody on the team can feel special.
The best thing you can say about the Jays’ recent effort is that they are trying. They’re just not trying very well.
Wednesday was headed toward failure again, until the Dodgers bullpen blew up. The winning run in Toronto’s 4-3 victory was scored on a throwing error. Hey, c’mon, isn’t that supposed to be the Jays’ thing?
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Though they weren’t swept, the Jays were still outscored 21-7 by L.A. They can’t grab or hold onto a lead. They can’t get a bases-loaded hit for love nor money.
This season is new, but it’s not going well. Everybody’s already hurt. They’re losing, which happens, but also losing badly and losing ugly, which shouldn’t.
What you are most struck by in watching them is how little the Jays look like the team you may remember from such series as Tampa Bay at home to close out last year. That team that did all the little things right. This one does most of them wrong.
Even Wednesday, there were gaffes galore – bad throws, bad base-running, bad inter-player communications. Had the game gone the other way, tomorrow’s off-day would’ve played like funereally. Not in terms of burying anyone’s hopes, but maybe narrowing down your choice of caskets. Do you like fourth place in the AL East, or do you want to really go for it and say fifth?
Toronto catcher Brandon Valenzuela, left, and closer Jeff Hoffman celebrate Wednesday's win, which snapped a six-game losing streak.Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press
Winning one puts the brakes on anyone trying to give up for them, but it doesn’t fix this team’s issues, which are legion.
Why did they finally win Wednesday? Because they let the other team make its own mistakes, which is what Toronto used to be good at.
So if there is a lesson for the now 5-7 Jays, it is try to be more normal. Less razzmatazz Jays. More fields-the-ball-cleanly Jays.
Since everyone didn’t forget the basics over the winter, there’s one obvious culprit – performance anxiety. That can happen to formerly bad teams that become good all of a sudden. Toronto used to have one guy with a problem with erraticism – closer Jeff Hoffman. Now they are all Jeff Hoffmans.
The players don’t have a way to define it, but if you listen, you can hear the manager trying to do so for them.
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After Wednesday’s game, John Schneider described the correct reaction: “Get back to neutral a little bit. Shake hands. High five. Get the lights on in the clubhouse. Enjoy an off-day.”
And chase each other around with water buckets like you’re doing matinees in the Catskills.
Odds are that this will all sort itself out. That’s the way baseball teams think – that the odds are determinative. Until they’re not, and then they sit around wondering about how badly the odds let them down.
So while this acute loss of identity isn’t a disaster, it is the foreshock that precedes a big one.
It doesn’t help that the reasons to give in are piling up. Starter Cody Ponce is out for the year (probably). Alejandro Kirk will be gone for a couple of months. Max Scherzer is already aching. Addison Barger is MIA.
There is no more effective excuse in sports than the “We couldn’t have seen all those injuries coming” one. Everybody buys that one. There is a constituency who will already buy that 2026 just wasn’t their year and that that wasn’t their fault. We’ll get ‘em again when everybody’s feeling better.
Addison Barger is just one of many Blue Jays dealing with an injury. Barger is resting his ankle in hopes of getting back into action later this month.Erin Hooley/The Associated Press
It’s way too early to start thinking that way, but I will guarantee you that someone in the organization is already batting it back and forth with themselves.
With that in mind, the next week or two will give us some sense of what the Jays are about.
First up, there’s Minnesota at home – not exactly a daunting task. Too many Gatorade showers will seem like rubbing it in. Then it’s off on a nine-game road swing through the Midwest (Milwaukee) and West (Diamondbacks and Angels).
Maybe what the Jays need is to get away from the supportive Toronto environment. Too supportive, possibly. Just you and some people who don’t like you very much, playing in environs that are already smoking hot. That should feel appropriately like August baseball.
If the Jays return from that trip not looking like the Jays as we know them, then perhaps it will be time to accept that they have changed just enough to become a flakier version of themselves. Still capable of putting wins together, but no longer so tightly arranged. More punk band than prog rock.
Or they come back having begun to sort out their communication issues. They like to say they are a family. This year, they have some new members. Maybe what they need are fewer big performative gestures, and more quietly talking to each other.
A long family road trip is a good place for that sort of thing.