In their run to Game 7 of the World Series last season, the Blue Jays showed they're a close group that rode the emotional wave that comes with playoff baseball. They need to find calmer waters in the long regular season, Cathal Kelly writes.Geoff Stellfox/Getty Images
It’s too early to say that the Blue Jays are suffering from a World Series curse, but it’s at least a minor hex.
First, Cody Ponce pooched his ACL less than an hour into his first start. Nobody’s officially cancelled his season, but once the team starts talking that way, it’s already done.
Then catcher Alejandro Kirk broke his thumb on a foul tip. Kirk is on the 10-day DL, but unless he’s secretly an X-Man, I’m unfamiliar with broken bones that heal in just over a week.
Kirk’s replacement, Tyler Heineman, had a miserable weekend. His throwing errors led directly to two consecutive losses. It’s one thing to subtract a big bat. It’s another to also add in the yips.
Closer Jeff Hoffman has a 2:1 blown-to-save ratio and their best left-handed reliever, Brendon Little, is out there throwing batting practice and has been demoted. The offence is suffering intermittent outages and the Jays were just swept by a team from Chicago (the bad one).
Blue Jays prepare for emotional rematch with Dodgers
It’s fair to say that every phase of the Jays’ roster is currently in a state of flux.
The Jays were meant to bound into the season against a series of no hopers. Instead, they’ve stumbled into it. On Monday, things get serious when the Dodgers arrive in Toronto.
Based on the team’s commentary in Chicago, all the looseness of spring training is gone. The walls have already started to close in.
“We’re eight games into the season and we’ve had some games that scream ‘Not us’,” manager John Schneider told Sportsnet after Saturday’s loss.
Getting too emotionally invested in the outcomes of the 162 games of the regular season isn't sustainable in professional baseball, Cathal Kelly writes, as reporters in Chicago said over the weekend that Jays' catcher Tyler Heineman (55) was visibly upset over letting a game get away in their series against the White Sox.Kamil Krzaczynski/Reuters
It’s a bit early for screaming about anything, and having “some” games amongst only eight in which you weren’t yourselves sounds like an issue. Reporters on the scene in Chicago said Heineman “wiped tears from his eyes” as he took responsibility for the second loss.
Does this sound like a baseball team in April? It sounds more like a team in October, and not a particularly well-adjusted one.
Though no one spoke about it as such, the great challenge of 2026 was always going to be emotional rather than physical or tactical. The Jays went through a transformative experience last season. Many players have talked about how they are still dealing with it now, months later.
It’s fantastic marketing because it makes the players seem human and approachable, but it’s not a sustainable way to do baseball. No team can go six months with its emotional temperature at fever levels. But that’s what the Jays have talked themselves into.
The mythology that has developed around the club is that the Jays are all fun-loving girl dad types (including the ones who don’t have girls, or any children at all). Every time you see them together they look one extended arm from a group hug.
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This puts them in flattering opposition to the Dodgers, who most people think of as a collection of money-grubbing mercenaries. They’re absolutely right. That’s the ‘professional’ part of professional baseball. All teams are money-grubbing mercenaries. Some just handle it with more style than others.
As mercenaries, the Dodgers are under no pressure to appear to be any particular way. Win a game – shrug. Lose a game – same reaction.
Meanwhile, the suddenly enlightened Jays have to act like they’re having the best day of their lives every time they go to work. No one’s allowed to get down or seem irritated. It would be a failure to exemplify the Spirt of ’25.
Does it look like the New York Yankees had a deeply affecting team-wide experience when they were whipped in the American League Divisional Series by Toronto last year? Did you see them mooning around in preseason about lessons learned? Nope, it was just back to work.
The New York Yankees are off to a 7-1 start and even have Giancarlo Stanton stealing bases, as they look to put last year's shortcomings behind them.Heather Khalifa/The Associated Press
Less than two weeks in and the Yankees have already built up a head of steam. Giancarlo Stanton even stole a base on the weekend. This is a guy who seems put out every time he hits a single and has to run to first.
If everyone in New York has decided to be healthy again then the Jays have a problem. There is a world where Toronto takes a couple of months to get going, looks up in June and the division has already disappeared over the horizon.
Toronto proved last year – and the Dodgers prove every year – that there is a profound disadvantage in having to slug your way out of the wild card. Eighteen of the last 22 World Series participants have been divisional champs.
So while it’s early, the games already matter. The ones you blow today will have to be made up at some point. Think of the tiny margins that put the Jays on top of the AL East last year.
Consistency is the key, and the Jays are sliding quickly into erraticism. They already give off the feeling of a team prone to mania, as well as funks.
I’m sure a couple of them wanted to give Heineman, Hoffman or Little a little shake during these first two weeks. Nothing serious, but you know, get your head in the game, pal. We’re doing this for real now.
But that’s off the table because the Jays all love each other like the weird sort of brothers who never fight. Ask anyone. Maybe this explains why Schneider is already sounding the (gentle) alarm.
This team needs to swap its playoff high for the regular season grind. The sort where a piddling win doesn’t have to end in a Gatorade bath, and a couple of losses isn’t a disaster someone feels the need to weep over.