George Springer’s dramatic Game 7 home run turned into a lasting memory.

“Different TVs have different delays,” recalled Nimmala, who was watching with Sam White, Owen Gregg, Tim Piasentin and Jake Cook. “I remember Springer’s homer in the championship series … everyone’s going crazy and our room’s a little delayed, and we’re like what just happened? And then we see Springer’s homer, the entire hotel’s just shaking, everyone’s screaming. That was a very, very cool moment.”

No doubt his experience underlines the wide impact made by Springer’s drive, which was commemorated with a bobblehead giveaway Friday night as the Blue Jays beat the Minnesota Twins 10-4. Despite cold, wet weather, fans began lining up in the morning to ensure they received one upon entry, and hours before it had even been handed out, it was already being resold online for up to $195.

Since that two-run homer in the seventh inning of a 4-3 win Oct. 20, Springer’s heard countless stories about where various people were when he helped send the Blue Jays to the World Series. 

The way Blue Jays prospects celebrated resonated with him.

“It’s all special,” he said. “I’ve been a part of that before where you’re watching the major-league team play and you think it’s awesome. Even though I was in the minor-leagues in ’12 and ’13 (when the Houston Astros, his original club, lost 107 and 111 games), you’re getting updates on the major-league team and all that stuff. For me, individually, obviously it’s a very cool moment in my life and in my career, one that I’ll never forget. And I don’t think I’ll probably truly understand it until I stop playing and have time to sit back. 

“But it’s just a huge moment for us as an organization.”

During spring training, several Blue Jays minor-leaguers in big-league camp made a point of asking him about the at-bat, “not necessarily what that was like, more of what the moment is, what was I thinking in that moment and how I go about certain things,” he explained. “It’s cool to go back and forth and have that kind of conversation with guys I hope are one day in the same spot as me.”

Springer’s answers to them about how to handle such situations are telling of his approach, his mindset.

“It’s a culmination of everything, right?” he explained. “In the regular season, you find yourself in those moments at times, obviously not as magnified, not as Game 7-like, but throughout the course of 162 you’ll hopefully be in that spot and you have to go through it to figure it out. There’s no substitute for experience. It’s what everybody always says: You’ve got to control your heart rate, you’ve got to slow down, you’ve got to try to enjoy the moment. Because those are ultimately the moments that you dream about as a kid.”

Rotation rehab

Blue Jays manager John Schneider said he received “very good reports” on Trey Yesavage’s rehab outing with low-A Dunedin on Thursday, when he threw 52 pitches in 2.2 innings and struck out six.

Yesavage, returning from a shoulder impingement, touched 96.1 m.p.h. and his fastball averaged 94.7, both in line where they should be, while getting 10 misses on 20 swings as St. Lucie pushed across four runs on four hits and a walk. 

That sets him up for an outing in the middle of next week, level-to-be-determined, in part based on weather with the goal of “at least 70 pitches and see where he goes after that.”

“I don’t really mind where or who he pitches against,” added Schneider. “Kind of want to just see him do what he did (Thursday) again.”

If all goes to plan, the Blue Jays could consider returning him to the majors at that point, or have him make one additional rehab outing, keeping the situation with the big-league club in mind.

Jose Berrios, working his way back from a stress fracture in his elbow, threw two innings of live batting practice Friday and was up to 94-95, said Schneider, and his next outing will be in a minor-league game next week. He’ll likely begin at 50 pitches.

Shane Bieber (foreram fatigue) and Yimi Garcia (elbow) are both slated to throw bullpens Saturday as they work their way up to game action.

Corbin connection

Thanks to Max Scherzer, Patrick Corbin knew plenty about the Blue Jays before they came calling once Cody Ponce suffered his season-ending knee injury, so the veteran lefty didn’t need to check in with his old Nationals teammate before signing.

“Our wives were talking, but there was some contractual stuff that I just left for him, we really didn’t have to talk too much,” Scherzer said laughing. “But I didn’t have to because of how much we talked in the off-season, how much I talked to him about Toronto and how much we loved it here. We’re good friends. We live in Jupiter together, we have kids of similar ages, backyard-pool parties throughout the whole off-season. I’ve already had those conversations about what Toronto is like.”

The lefty made his Blue Jays debut Friday, allowing four runs in four innings while throwing 85 pitches in his second outing of the season. His first game came last Saturday with low-A Dunedin, allowing an unearned run in five innings while throwing 74 pitches, a quickie build up necessitated by the Ponce injury.

The 36-year-old is one of only four pitchers to have made 30 or more starts in each of the last five seasons, new teammates Dylan Cease, Kevin Gausman and Jose Berrios being the others. 

“He can fill a role for us,” said Scherzer. “He can help us win a ballgame. It’s going to be great to have him in here, great to be back with him.”

More from Sportsnet

George Springer on family, fans and weathering the Blue Jays’ slow start

Valenzuela’s first career homer powers Blue Jays to comeback win over Twins

A night earlier, at the end of a 4-1 setback to the Los Angeles Dodgers that was his team’s sixth straight loss, the superstar first baseman sat in the dugout for an extended period, staring at the field.

The contrast between the two moments was telling.

“Giving my thanks to God,” Guerrero said of holding his arms up to the sky. “It was a tough week for us. We won, we have a day off and we come in fresh for Friday, that’s what it is. (Tuesday) I spent probably 15 minutes in the dugout thinking how we can beat those guys and (Wednesday) we did.”

Wednesday’s win wasn’t all pretty, with another error leading to a run, two more 0-fers with the bases loaded, leaving them an unfathomable 1-for-19 this season with three on, and a 3-for-13 with runners in scoring position that actually nudged their average up to .215 (23-for-107). But pressure on the bases in the eighth inning by Davis Schneider, who went first-to-third on an Andres Gimenez bouncer up the middle, and Gimenez, who stole second leading to a Will Smith throwing error that scored the decisive run, turned the tide.

The Blue Jays maintained that aggressiveness on the bases despite a Guerrero mistake after his leadoff double in the sixth, as he broke to third on a Jesus Sanchez grounder right in front of him, only for Miguel Rojas to range right and throw to third for a frustrating out.

“That was a tough one because (Rojas) was playing behind me,” said Guerrero. “Sanchie hit it hard. I thought it was going to be a base hit. He did a good job. I talked with (first base coach Mark Budzinkski) and next time it’s better to go back and then go to third. We learn from that I think it’s not going to happen again.”

There have been plenty of lessons early for Guerrero and the rest of the Blue Jays.

While he was sitting in the dugout Tuesday night, Guerrero said he was thinking how “everybody in here has to get better, especially myself.” His groundout to third with two on in the sixth Tuesday left him “mad with myself” and wanting to “take that back.” 

“You have to think sometimes, how you get better, how you do something to help the team win,” he said. “To me, better than being mad, breaking a bat, breaking something, I just relax (in the dugout post-game), see the fear and try to come through myself.”

Guerrero reached base three times in four trips Wednesday, including a walk in the seventh after George Springer’s RBI double and Daulton Varsho’s run-scoring single tied the game 3-3. He acknowledged that “sometimes we want to be the guy” but stayed disciplined in that spot, refusing to chase as Blake Treinen tried to get him to expand.

The plate appearance was an example of the “take better at-bats” approach he feels will get him hot. “Believe in myself in the box and try to get my pitch. Try to not chase. … It’s 12 games in and we have 150 to go. It’s going to be good.”

Hoff delivers

Jeff Hoffman closed out Wednesday’s win against the gauntlet atop the Dodgers lineup, earning a save that offered some validation for a weird start in which the underlying numbers haven’t matched the results.

Through seven appearances, he’s struck out an absurd 15 of 31 batters faced, yet he’s allowed runs in three of those outings, although only two of the four have been earned. Against the Dodgers, he struck out Shohei Ohtani to open the frame, gave up a Kyle Tucker single and Will Smith walk, rallied to strike out Freddie Freeman and then induced a roller to the mound from Max Muncy for the final out. 

“Especially with my position, nobody really cares what the process is, because when something goes wrong, you just lose,” said Hoffman, “it’s just nice to see what it’s supposed to look like. So many weird things have happened over the first week and it’s nice to finally see one all the way through and end with us winning the game.”

One priority for Hoffman this season is to be more unpredictable in his pitch sequencing, particularly against a team like the Dodgers that is good with usage tendencies. The pivotal Freeman at-bat was a great example, as he threw two splitters to start and then went with three straight fastballs to get a chase swing, rather than vice-versa.

“I was heavy on the split (Tuesday) night and I felt like that was probably a pitch that if I threw it early in the outing (Wednesday), it was a good pitch they were going to be looking for,” said Hoffman. “So, once we had the spots and the counts to be able to throw the fastball with a little bit more room for error, we could climb the zone and see how high they’ll go. When you’ve been heavy with the splitter and it’s been a good pitch and it is getting people out, that’s in their heads, so we’re just going to be able to sneak a few more fastballs by them.”

Learning curve

Alejandro Kirk’s fractured left thumb and the subsequent surgery that will sideline him for six weeks has meant rookie catcher Brandon Valenzuela is working through “a really high learning curve” as he acclimates to the majors.

It’s a challenge the 25-year-old is embracing as he’s “learning from the pitching staff, learning the guys, learning from Kirk, (Tyler) Heineman, Drew (Butera, the catching coach), amazing dudes to have in my corner, having their input into all of my pre-game stuff, my scouting report for the games, my game reviews, all of that.”

Valenzuela has appeared in four games so far and came into Wednesday’s game in the eighth inning as a defensive replacement after Myles Straw ran for Heineman in the seventh. That left him handling two high-leverage innings behind the plate in the 4-3 win.

The Blue Jays’ game-planning process at the big-league level is similar to that in the minors, he said, but is more involved as at triple-A Buffalo, “it was just me and the pitching coach going through the scouting reports. Here it’s catching coach, pitching coach, starting pitcher, me, Heinie, so it’s not me by myself. I get more help.”

During spring training, Valenzuela played in 11 games, which helped him build familiarity with the pitching staff, but one difference is “on the field it’s more competitive,” he said. “The games in spring training for me mattered because I needed to make a name for myself. During the season, it’s about the team, it’s no longer just me, there’s the whole city. So there’s a lot more competitiveness from us and the other teams.”

Nonetheless, “playing feels the same,” he added. “I ain’t gonna lie, I was a little nervous for my first game, but once I got my first inning out of the way, it was like, same game I played my whole life. I felt prepared.”

More from Sportsnet

Breaking down concern level for Blue Jays’ underachieving top bats

Blue Jays raise issue with Ohtani getting extended warmup between innings

To that end, their latest moves are aimed at restoring some equilibrium, with Patrick Corbin recalled to tentatively start Friday against the Minnesota Twins, filling the rotation spot of Cody Ponce, who will be sidelined six months after right knee surgery next week. Addison Barger, meanwhile, hit the injured list with a left ankle sprain and Tyler Fitzgerald was recalled to cover the absence, giving manager John Schneider another piece to mix and match with as he tries to get his team “just being in sync.”

“Not having games where guys are getting stretched out, you’re making moves, you’re churning through guys, you’re optioning, you’re rotating – you don’t really want that,” he continued. “There have been a lot of pitchers used so far. You never know who it’s going to be. … Last year, Eric (Lauer) was a great story, kind of a shot in the arm when Max (Scherzer) was down. We’ll see who it is. Signing a veteran guy (like Corbin), you know what you’re going to get. You trust the fact that he’s going to be prepared and by no means are we asking him to step in and be our No. 1. You’ve got to get through the rotation a couple times with guys doing what they should, getting the innings they should, putting the guys in the bullpen in the right place and just slowing down the transactional log, if you will.”

The Blue Jays took a step in that direction Tuesday night in a 4-1 setback to the Los Angeles Dodgers that nonetheless was their sixth loss in a row. 

While the result was by no means what they wanted, Schneider described it as “closer to what we should look like,” as they had a chance to win thanks to 5.1 innings from Kevin Gausman, which led to more optimal bullpen deployment, preventing the scramble to cover innings so common in the previous losses.

Still, much work remains, especially at the plate, where they loaded the bases with nobody out in the seventh to knock out Yoshinobu Yamamoto but watched Alex Vesia get Andres Gimenez on a fly out to left, strike out Brandon Valenzuela and get George Springer on a fly out to right, preserving a 3-1 lead. 

Blake Treinen and Edwin Diaz locked down the final two frames to secure a win in which the Blue Jays had their chances, but went 3-for-12 with runners in scoring position – fittingly, two of those hits didn’t score runs – and are now just 20-for-94 this season.

Their .213 average is third-worst in the majors and even more glaring is that they’re a hard-to-fathom 1-for-17 with the bases loaded.

“Not anxiety. Patience comes into it. What you’re swinging at comes into it. And then not being afraid to just take a walk at times. That’s all part of it,” Schneider said of what’s leading to the lack of execution at the plate. “It’s a tricky thing and pitchers are good. You have to be convicted in what you’re trying to do in every situation, whether it’s bases loaded, nobody out, or first and third on, one out, whatever it may be, just do your job and move it on to the next guy. That’s what we were really good at last year. It’s what we are striving to continue to do and it’s just not happening right now.”

The Blue Jays aren’t playing nearly tight enough in other parts of their game to compensate, either, as a poor Gausman throw on an Alex Freeland bunt in a two-run third led to one run, a controversial balk call on the right-hander in the fifth — “definitely not a balk, I’m not going to move off that,” said Schneider — led to another and a misplayed chopper and a throwing error in the ninth produced a third.

“The way we’re built is, we can’t shoot ourselves in the foot, we can’t give extra outs, and then it just allows us to be who we are,” said Schneider. “That hasn’t really been the case last week.”

Despite that, once you factor that Gausman is also fighting the flu-bug sweeping through the clubhouse, he pitched better than his final line of three runs on five hits and two walks with five strikeouts suggests, and was followed by strong relief work from Mason Fluharty, Louis Varland and Jeff Hoffman.

While he lamented the Freeland throw and the balk — “It wasn’t a balk, but if it’s close enough for them to call it, then maybe it’s on me,” he said — the night’s pitching formula is “how we consistently win ballgames, by using those guys in roles that they expect to be used in, and that’s late in the game, hopefully, or to get a certain lefty out.”

“We’ve been asking a lot of them already,” Gausman added. “We go deep in the game, everything lines up the way it should … it’s kind of a trickle effect.”

The same applies to what the Blue Jays have gone through the past week, which traces back to the springtime injuries suffered by Trey Yesavage and Jose Berrios, along with Shane Bieber needing more time. Ponce’s injury was followed by Alejandro Kirk’s injury — he underwent surgery Tuesday and will miss six weeks — followed by Barger’s injury, with a flu in the mix, too.

“It’s been crazy. It really has. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anything like this, such a short period of time,” said Gausman. “You can kind of hang your hat on the fact that we do have a lot of the season left, but we just need to start playing better, playing more like our brand of baseball.”

Beginning with finding some more secure footing.

More from Sportsnet

Blue Jays manager John Schneider ejected vs. Dodgers

Blue Jays reveal injury timelines for Kirk, Ponce

Sure, it’s a rematch of last fall’s epic World Series, featuring two rivals who compete across all areas of the market as well as on the field, each considered a title contender again this season. 

But not even two weeks into the season, the Blue Jays are in significant duress, forced into roster improvisation due to injury and usage churn, compounded by uncharacteristically sloppy play and a flu circulating the clubhouse. Given that, clinging to last year and framing this as anything other than a difficult series at a bad time misses the point, as right now the defending American League champions are simply riding out a troubling stretch.

“That’s how it works — over the course of 162 games, you’re never going to have everything go right,” George Springer said before a 14-2 Dodgers drubbing in which Max Scherzer threw only two innings to manage some forearm tendonitis, shifting the Blue Jays into survival mode. “There is going to be somebody grinding through something both on and off the field, guys are going to go down. You’re not going to play as well as you would like to all the time. What makes this team good is the ability to respond and to absorb the ebbs and flows of the game, to understand that you can’t try to do too much. You’ve got to go play a really good baseball team, obviously, and whatever happens, happens.”

Right now, little is happening that is good for the Blue Jays.

Scherzer began experiencing the tendinitis a couple of weeks ago, but it only started to impact his throwing after his start against the Colorado Rockies last week. He played catch Sunday, and when his forearm remained tight, he spoke with the club and they decided that the best approach was to make his start Monday, but to keep it short.

“A reduced start like today should really help, allow me to really get underneath this, get all the treatment into it, take all the anti-inflammatories, and that should hopefully knock this out,” Scherzer explained. “I’m not long-term concerned here. I had an issue, it just prevented me from making a full start today. Didn’t throw a bad pitch where it got worse. The forearm didn’t lock up on me. So, hopefully all the good decisions that happened today pay off this weekend.”

Central to that approach was that he not make things worse, and he received “explicit directions, like, you cannot hurt yourself, you can’t take any undue risk,” said Scherzer, adding later: “My mind is I’m going to be making my next start.”

The sensitivity to further injury underlines just how deep injuries have already cut.

Alejandro Kirk, hit on the catcher’s mitt by a foul ball Friday, will undergo surgery Tuesday to repair a fractured left thumb, with manager John Schneider saying rough estimates for his recovery “could be 3-to-4 (weeks), it could be 4-to-6 (weeks) … we’ll see after the surgery.”

Cody Ponce visited specialist Dr. ElAttrache in Los Angeles, where a final determination was to be made on surgery for the ACL sprain in his right knee. 

Addison Barger, who left Sunday’s loss in Chicago with discomfort in both ankles, limped through the clubhouse, but the Blue Jays held off putting him on the injured list to see if he recovers enough to avoid the stint, while still adding infielder Tyler Fitzgerald to the taxi squad nonetheless.

On the pitching side, Austin Voth was designated for assignment to make room for Josh Fleming, who may be the next Blue Jay for a day after logging three innings of mop-up duty, allowing four runs on six hits, behind Scherzer.

Fleming is the 17^th pitcher the Blue Jays have used this season already, not counting catcher Tyler Heineman, who worked a clean ninth inning Monday in his second outing of the season. Not counting the four position players to make an appearance, they used 34 pitchers all last season, so they’re already halfway to that total after just 10 games, with Patrick Corbin, Trey Yesavage, Jose Berrios, Shane Bieber and Yimi Garcia all working their way back. 

So, they’re making up a lot of things as they go at the moment.

“I don’t want the woe is me, you know what I mean? It’s what can we do now?” said Schneider. “Right now, not just our depth is being tested, our creativity is being tested as a group, like, how are we going to cover this, what are we going to do? It’s not always perfect, but we take a lot of pride in that and players do, too. The last five games have been really tough. But they’re in a good frame of mind. I think they’ve all been through enough and they’re all old enough and mature enough to say, ‘hey, this is not going to define our season right now.’ If you get caught in that quicksand, you look around and you say, look who’s missing and look who’s hurt, that’s when you could really start to lose it.”

The biggest pivot will be living without Kirk for an extended period, as his absence impacts the lineup as well as every pitcher on the staff. Schneider described him as “an underrated player because what he can do on both sides of the ball is pretty unique,” while adding that “Kirk’s superpower is that he’s just so steady and that is hard to do when you’re back there every day and you’re either working a pitching staff or getting ready for an at-bat, or grinding a tough 10 at-bats and making sure you’re present for the guys. He just never budges and that’s the important part of the position.”

To that end, that’s why Schneider told Heineman and rookie Brandon Valenzuela that “you guys are not Alejandro Kirk, you guys are your own people, you don’t have to do anything that he does, you have to do what you’re good at.”

The same applies across the roster until the Blue Jays get themselves right at the plate, play cleaner in the field and find a way to better utilize their pitching, rather than worrying simply about getting through the next nine innings. 

Perspective, then, on facing the Dodgers, laden in narrative as the series may be.

“It’s three games in April, against a very good team, and we’re going to have to play some good baseball. That’s it. There’s no real anything,” said Springer. “I get the opponent’s name. But at the end of the day, it’s a very, very good team on the other side of the line. And, we’re going to have to play good baseball.”

Regardless of who is across the diamond.

More from Sportsnet

Blue Jays’ Scherzer exits after two innings vs. Dodgers with forearm tendinitis

Blue Jays’ Kirk to have thumb surgery, timeline still unclear

“Probably our largest focal point and biggest goal was to try to create a destination spot where our own players didn’t want to leave and where players from other teams wanted to come, and I think, invariably, we find ourselves going up against the Blue Jays a lot in different ways, and they have created that as well,” the Dodgers’ president of baseball operations said back on Oct. 24, when asked what stuck out to him about the way his rival is run.

“They have done a really good job with their facilities, the way they communicate, how they help get the most out of players. I think they have done a tremendous job.”

When the same question was posed to Blue Jays general manager Ross Atkins, he pointed to the Dodgers’ “open-minded nature. Andrew has also kept a lot of staff members around. There is a commitment to his people. Obviously, it starts with their ownership. They have continued to build upon really good resources. Those are all things I would say the Blue Jays are trying to do as well.”

Those feelings of mutual admiration were tested during a fiercely fought Fall Classic won by the Dodgers, and are sure to hit differently Monday (Sportsnet and Sportsnet+, 6:30 p.m. ET / 3:30 p.m. PT), when the teams meet at Rogers Centre for the first time since that epic Game 7.

That their rivalry extended into an off-season clash for free agent Kyle Tucker — who chose Los Angeles’ $240-million, four-year deal rather than Toronto’s $350-million, 10-year offer — adds even more intrigue to the series.

Still, an underlying theme is the intensity of rivalry between them now, and how closely each monitors what the other does in search of an edge, demonstrated by the Dodgers complaining to Major League Baseball about the positioning of the Blue Jays’ base coaches during the World Series.

Although the league dismissed that complaint, MLB heard from players and clubs throughout the regular season and playoffs about coaches across baseball standing outside the coach boxes to gather information on pitchers and relay that to hitters. Throughout the post-season, umpires instructed managers during pre-game lineup-card exchanges to remind coaches about remaining in their boxes during play, although teams still pushed the envelope.

During the World Series, the Blue Jays and Dodgers combined for 45 balls in play that produced a run, with one or both base coaches outside the box on 23 of them — just over half. Notably, Game 7 was the only time the coaches for both teams were inside the boxes for every run in the game.

The above numbers, of course, don’t mean that coaches were necessarily picking up info or relaying it to hitters on plays that scored runs. But the reality is that the farther away from home a base coach goes, the easier it becomes to peer into a pitcher’s glove.

Sometimes, the positioning of base coaches or their specific movements are little more than gamesmanship aimed at disrupting the opposing pitcher. Sometimes, though, they actually are looking for a pitch grip, or are passing along tips that come from the dugout, or are relaying info from the base coach across the diamond.

Either way, it was a topic that mattered to those on the field. And although front office officials wouldn’t typically be involved in matters this granular, the likes of Friedman and Atkins were certainly aware of these conversations as the series unfolded.

All of which is why MLB is more strictly enforcing their coach positioning rules this season, mandating that they stand within the box between pitches when the pitcher is on the rubber. Umpires are to issue a warning upon the first violation, with the coach subject to ejection for subsequent infractions. 

Discussing the change during spring training, Blue Jays manager John Schneider said, “What the league’s trying to eliminate is you look up and there’s nobody on base, and you get a third base coach or a first base coach almost at the back of the dirt” to prevent “people being in spots that may be a little bit more advantageous to see a grip or a pitch.” 

“Pitchers all have tendencies, where they come set, how they’re gripping each pitch, arm might be a little bit higher, a little bit lower on a certain pitch,” he added. “The goal of it is to try to get everyone in the same spot. If you can find an advantage in (the coach’s box), great, go for it. But if you’re wandering down the line talking to the umpire, looking at some things from a different angle, that’s what we’re trying to avoid.”

One thing the 4-5 Blue Jays will be trying to avoid is making too much of their latest clash with the 7-2 Dodgers, especially after a 1-5 week versus the Colorado Rockies and Chicago White Sox, plus major injuries to Cody Ponce and Alejandro Kirk.

Memories good and bad from last fall will be stirred, no doubt, as colleague Ben Nicholson-Smith examined previously. But be it the free-agency markets of Shohei Ohtani, Roki Sasaki and Tucker, or a World Series that won’t be soon forgotten, the Blue Jays and Dodgers are building quite the rivalry, eying one another down to the very last detail.

–with files from Ben Nicholson-Smith

Addison Barger, Trey Yesavage, Braydon Fisher, Mason Fluharty, Joey Loperfido, Paxton Schultz and Lazaro Estrada all made varying degrees of contribution to a team that advanced to the World Series. Prospects Khal Stephen, Juaron Watts-Brown, Alan Roden, Kendry Rojas and Will Wagner built up enough currency to be used for deadline adds. Yesavage was an obvious headliner, but there were several other developmental successes, too.

In the process, the Blue Jays moved from a consensus bottom-third farm system among public third-party evaluators to the middle tier of organizational rankings. 

*End-of-2025 ranking; others are as of spring 2026

The goal for 2026, then, is simple.

“We want to continue building off that because they set the standard up there and ideally we’re preparing our guys to contribute to that when they get up there and not just be a part of it,” said Joe Sclafani, the director of player development for the Blue Jays.

“The pitching was outstanding, honestly. They took jumps much quicker than even I thought was going to happen and that’s a testament to Justin (Lehr, the director of pitching), Ricky (Meinhold, the pitching co-ordinator), all the pitching coaches. They did a really good job of everybody getting on the same page, same language, messaging, guys attacking the zone, understanding themselves better, so building off of that, for sure.”

On the hitting side, “I think our damage development has been pretty good,” added Sclafani.

“Guys are coming in and they’re seeing meaningful gains, not only in bat speed but in EVs, as well. We have opportunities. Definitely continue getting better with the defensive development. We were just OK last year comparatively. Baserunning is the lowest-hanging fruit for us. We were bottom three in all of baseball in a lot of those things. We’re going to try to steal more bags. We are just going to be better on the basepaths, knowing how important it is up there. We want to make sure we’re consistent with it.”

There’s a lot to unpack there and the theme of building organizational continuity across all levels is an important one. But given where the Blue Jays were on the pitching side after a dismal 2024 that included eight prospects needing reconstructive elbow surgery, the gains in a pipeline that had been broken were perhaps most vital.

Certainly, Yesavage’s five-level surge culminating in a star turn during the post-season represented a massive victory, but so too did Fisher and Fluharty being promoted to log meaningful innings for the bullpen, and Schultz and Estrada filling in some gaps. 

“We haven’t been able to do that in the past, to bring up guys that contribute right away, are comfortable right away,” said pitching coach Pete Walker, who described the difference that makes in dealing with a season’s attrition as “huge.”

Driving that production are changes to the organization’s approach in developing pitchers, a byproduct of the internal evaluation that followed the 2024 season. Walker described it as “getting back to pitching, to be honest with you,” with alignment from the majors on down.

“Obviously, velocity is important, maintaining health and having good pitch shapes and working on your arsenal,” Walker continued. “But it’s more about locating your fastball, locating your pitches, knowing how to get ahead in the count, knowing how to expand, the running game, simplifying some deliveries. There are a lot of things that we are emphasizing at the minor-league level that are imperative to pitch in the major leagues. It’s about developing pitchers — not throwers, not guys with great stuff who can’t control the running game and walk too many guys. That does nothing for us. It’s about the complete pitcher.”

The Blue Jays are seeking to extend that continuity on the pitching side to their position players this season.

For hitters, that means “helping educate them on what makes them successful and helping them figure out how to build a plan against different pitch shapes,” explained Sclafani.

Based on the big-league’s club success, it makes sense to add “a renewed emphasis on situational hitting, learning to take your shots, understanding what the pitchers are trying to do to you, and making sure that when you get up there and you’re in a high-stress situation, you’ve been there and done it,” per Sclafani.

Blue Jays hitting coach David Popkins preaches the same things. He and major-league assistants Lou Iannotti and Cody Atkinson spoke to the minor-league hitting group led by director Craig Parry about the qualities they value and skills needed to succeed. 

The goal is to “free them up to be the same way we are here — athletic, adjustable, dangerous hitters,” said Popkins. “You’re trying to make the transition as smooth as possible. They have the same plans that we have, the same preparation styles that they can pull from some of the things that we do. You’re trying to do that but also give some creative freedom for other people to explore different ways to solve things. Sometimes if you try to do everything the same swing-wise, you get into trouble. So just making sure there’s individuality and that guys are able to solve things pretty uniquely.”

Here’s a look at where various Blue Jays prospects are starting the season:

Triple-A Buffalo Bisons

Notable assignments: Pitchers – Austin Voth, Adam Macko, Grant Rogers, C.J. Van Eyk, Chase Lee, Chad Dallas, Yariel Rodriguez; Position players – C Brandon Valenzuela, SS Josh Kasevich, OF R.J. Schreck, OF Yohendrick Pinango, INF Josh Rivera, 3B Charles McAdoo, OF Jonatan Clase.

Outlook: The Blue Jays have already dipped into their depth here by recalling Estrada and several players listed above are expected to see time over the course of the next six months. Kasevich and Schreck, in particular, impressed during camp. But the jockeying among pitchers to move up the depth chart may be the most important thing that happens in Buffalo this season.

Double-A New Hampshire Fisher Cats

Notable assignments: Pitchers – Gage Stanifer, Fernando Perez, Javen Coleman, Nate Garkow; Position players – INF Sean Keyes, INF Cutter Coffey, OF Eddie Micheletti Jr.

Outlook: Stanifer jumped three levels last year in a remarkable rise that nearly mirrored Yesavage. He earned an invitation to big-league camp and his stuff is big enough that Blue Jays people believe he has a chance to force his way up with another strong season. Coleman, a hard-throwing, one-inning lefty, is a name to keep an eye on as is Garkow, whose bread-and-butter changeup is a pitch that generates buzz.

High-A Vancouver Canadians

Notable assignments: Pitchers – Johnny King, Landen Maroudis, Austin Cates; Position players – SS Arjun Nimmala; C Edward Duran.

Outlook: Nimmala, still just 20, begins the season back at Vancouver after starting strong at high-A last year before fading in the second half. A good opening would set him up for a quick promotion. King, 19, struck out an eye-popping 105 batters over 61.2 innings between rookie ball and low-A last season and there’s lots of internal excitement about his potential. Maroudis is seeking to regain the form he showed during an exciting A-ball debut before reconstructive elbow surgery that spring and a rough return last season.

Low-A Dunedin Blue Jays

Notable Assignments: Pitchers – Brandon Barriera, Nolan Perry, Karson Ligon; Position players – SS JoJo Parker, OF Blaine Bullard, OF Enmanuel Bonilla.

Outlook: Parker, the eighth overall pick last year, jumps right into full season ball after impressing immediately at camp. The 19-year-old’s progress will be very closely watched. Barriera, the club’s first-round pick in 2022, returned last season from reconstructive elbow surgery and pitched in only five games before suffering a mini-fracture in his ulna. He’ll be built up with caution as he tries to regain his past momentum. Bonilla, inked to a $4.1 million bonus in the 2023 signing period, hasn’t made good on his big power yet but gets a bump after two years of rookie ball.

Rookie FCL Blue Jays

Notable assignments: Pitchers – Seojun Moon, Carson Messina; Position players – INF Juan Sanchez, INF Tim Piasentin.

Outlook: Sanchez, 18, was one of the club’s biggest spends in last year’s international free-agent period and immediately tore up the Dominican Summer League last year, batting .341/.439/.565 in 56 games, earning him a quick promotion stateside. Moon was signed with some of the bonus pool money the Blue Jays acquired while pursuing Roki Sasaki. Piasentin’s raw power has earned him lots of attention.

INJURIES: Righty Jake Bloss, recovering from reconstructive elbow surgery, is trending well with his current buildup. … Lefty Ricky Tiedemann, who began camp feeling healthy after undergoing his own elbow surgery, was shut down in late February with elbow soreness and is progressing slowly. … Outfielder Victor Arias is still recovering from surgery on his non-throwing shoulder last fall. He should be in rehab games by the month’s end or early May before he rejoins New Hampshire. … Infielder Adrian Pinto is also bound for the Fisher Cats once he finishes his rehab progression after visa issues delayed his arrival to camp. … Righty Silvano Hechavarria is being built up slowly after experiencing some elbow soreness last fall. The plan for him is to be in Vancouver by May. … Righty Micah Bucknam is likely to miss the season after exiting a game with an elbow injury during the second week of March. As an advanced college arm, the 22-year-old had a chance to move through the system quickly.

More from Sportsnet

Blue Jays’ Yesavage closest to return, Lauer’s start bumped to Sunday

How Blue Jays’ new additions are faring early

That’s exactly what happened Tuesday, when relievers Mason Fluharty, Braydon Fisher and Jeff Hoffman helped lock down the final innings of a 5-1 win over the Colorado Rockies the night after the catcher’s two innings of mop-up duty kept them out of a 14-5 blowout loss.

“That’s the whole reason why I’m like, yeah, just give me the ball, I don’t care if I give up a bunch of runs,” said Heineman, who followed up 27 pitches and five runs against Monday by catching nine innings and collecting two hits. “It sucks, it’s a crappy situation to be in, you’re getting blown out, we hate it, so I don’t like being on the mound. But I will do it 100 times out of 100 to help the team save a bullpen arm. If I can get them an extra day, it’s just massive.”

Combined with six strong innings of one-run ball from Max Scherzer and the bottom of the order helping set the table for the top of the lineup to score some runs, Tuesday’s bounce-back night was filled with examples of the “out-team the other team” ethos manager John Schneider often talks about.

Cody Ponce’s knee injury 2.1 innings into his outing Monday left the team in need of the lengthy outing, one that Scherzer delivered.

Heineman’s work meant Fluharty was fresh to record two outs in the seventh, Fisher could come on and cleverly pick off T.J. Rumfield at second base to end that inning before throwing a clean eighth while Hoffman closed out the ninth.

A three-run seventh opened some margin for error on a tight 2-1 Blue Jays lead, allowing Tyler Rogers, who’d pitched in three of the first four games, to get at least a partial breather, as he warmed just in case in the eighth but wasn’t needed.

Heineman, meanwhile, also started the day after pitching, helping the Blue Jays match up better in Wednesday’s series finale when Alejandro Kirk will start versus lefty Kyle Freeland.

Weaving such marginal gains into a wider interconnectivity was a fundamental part of the Blue Jays’ success a season ago, a dynamic they’re seeking to maintain and build upon this season.

“Perfect examples,” Schneider said of the above list. “That’s how you can stack some days together and stack some innings together. There was a lot of that today, going back to picking Heinie picking us up and Fish, underrated play is the pick-off at second, we work on it a lot. That kind of flipped the momentum, allowed us to score and up and down the lineup guys did their part. It’s nice that even in the loss (Monday) that was not good at all for a lot of different reasons, they bounce back the way that they usually do and they played their game.”

The starting point, of course, was Scherzer, who signed March 2, looked close to ready then and kept the Rockies in check in the first start of his 19^th season in the majors, burned only by a Hunter Goodman solo shot in the sixth that ate into a 2-0 Blue Jays lead.

Scherzer’s approach was dictated, in part, by his understanding that the team needed him to get deep this outing. 

“He is so analytical about everything that he does,” said Heineman. “He told me today, ‘I want to throw fastballs up and in because I know they’re aggressive, I know they’re going to swing, I need to get out of innings early so I can pitch into the sixth or the seventh inning.’ He was able to navigate that.”

All while putting up zeroes until the Blue Jays took control in the fifth inning when they loaded the bases against reliever Juan Mejia, subbing in once starter Ryan Feltner left the game after three innings with a right glute contusion from an Andres Gimenez liner.

Jaden Hill took over and Jesus Sanchez ripped an RBI single that opened the scoring before Vladimir Guerrero Jr. worked a bases-loaded walk to bring home Heineman with a second run. Hill kept the Blue Jays from blowing it open, though, catching Kazuma Okamoto looking on a slider that survived an ABS challenge before getting Nathan Lukes swinging.

“I’ll tell you what, the vibes here are unbelievable,” Sanchez, off to a 6-for-13 start with his new team, said through interpreter Hector Lebron. “I never been on a team like this.”

The Rockies threatened in the top of the seventh when Rumfield opened the inning with a single and advanced to second with one out on a passed ball. But Fluharty rallied to strike out Brenton Doyle and Fisher then took over and executed the pick off perfectly after Heineman called it, with Ernie Clement providing a perfect target and clean tag.

“In my opinion, picking someone off is a momentum killer for the team that gets picked off, because it kind of feels embarrassing,” said Fisher. “And then picking someone off, it fires you up, since it doesn’t happen that often.”

The Blue Jays rode the momentum change in the bottom half as Sanchez and Guerrero opened the inning with base hits before RBI singles by Okamoto and Lukes extended the lead. After Okamoto was thrown out trying to stretch to third, Clement’s RBI double made it 5-1.

Fisher added a shutdown eighth, a two-up outing that wouldn’t have been possible without Heineman “going out there and, honestly, wearing it for those two innings, allowing the bullpen to take their days,” he said.

“Especially early in the season, it’s hard to replicate going back-to-back and warming up as many times as we do and all that stuff in spring training, so the first I’d say month is kind of hard on the arm and the body,” added Fisher. “We’re all getting used to it and it helps a lot letting us rest that extra day and then we can go in there today and help us win.”

The way little things add up over time and create a greater whole.

More from Sportsnet

Blue Jays left to improvise with Ponce due to miss ‘pretty significant chunk of time’

Rockies’ Ryan Feltner exits vs. Blue Jays after being hit by comebacker

“He’s got pretty good perspective, frustrated, for sure, but I think he has pretty good perspective on it,” Schneider said Tuesday, after revealing that Ponce is going to miss an extended period with an ACL sprain in his right knee. “The person in me just hates it for him, first outing, weird play, all that kind of stuff. But he’s handling it OK. He was in here with his brother-in-law, George Kittle, today, they were kind of laughing – talk about two large humans, Jesus – but he’s in decent spirits.”

Ponce and the Blue Jays were awaiting additional medical opinions before charting definitive steps and Schneider said the club’s hope was that the 31-year-old avoided a complete tear of the ligament. 

The “best possibility,” would be Ponce avoiding the operating table, said Schneider, but “even if it’s not surgery, it’s still going to be a pretty significant chunk of time” that he’s out. Recovering in time to pitch again this year will be very difficult given that the ACL is vital in stabilizing the knee and allowing for quick movements, so there’s a very real chance Ponce will have to wait until 2027 to resume his second tour in the majors.

Cold as that reality is for Ponce on an individual level, it’s also a very real challenge for the Blue Jays on a team level, given that injured starters Jose Berrios, Trey Yesavage and Shane Bieber are all at least a few weeks away from returning and there’s no obvious fill-in candidate.

Lazaro Estrada, recalled from triple-A Buffalo on Tuesday as Ponce was placed on the injured list, is one possibility to fill Sunday’s vacancy with Austin Voth, signed to a minor-league deal last week to provide rotation depth for the Bisons, another viable internal option. 

One thing the Blue Jays are reluctant to do is run a modified four-man rotation by utilizing off-days, not wanting to risk solving one problem while potentially creating another. So, for a team that seemed to have so much rotation surplus over the winter and into the spring, they’re suddenly in a spot where they need to improvise as they go along.

“We’ll have to use our depth, we’ll have to use whoever can offer length and, if that’s one two times through, we do have three other guys kind of getting close in Biebs and Jose and Trey,” said Schneider. “So I think it’ll be a variety of things, really, to cover that until one of those guys is ready to come back.”

More from Sportsnet

Rockies’ Ryan Feltner exits vs. Blue Jays after being hit by comebacker

Blue Jays injury updates: Latest on Berrios, Garcia, Yesavage, Bieber

“You never get over it. Not that one. Nor should we. That’s how important winning a World Series is to all of us,” Scherzer said in an interview ahead of Tuesday’s game (Sportsnet, Sportsnet+, 7 p.m. ET / 4 p.m. PT). “You make all the sacrifices in the world, you work so hard to get here to have that one opportunity. To be that close and not get it, I don’t see how I’m ever going to get over that one. And good. You don’t want me to be able to get over it. Like, why would you want a player to be over it?”

Those sentiments demonstrate how deeply the competitive fires still burn for the 41-year-old, who re-signed on March 2 with the Toronto Blue Jays for a second season. Scherzer, who allowed one run in 4.1 innings in Game 7 and left up 3-1 in the eventual 5-4, 11-inning loss, described the post-season run as “the highest level of baseball you can possibly play,” and believed “once you get that taste in your mouth … you understand that’s the standard.”

Still, there are no comforts around not finishing the job, because “for some of the guys, it would have been their first World Series, their first moment having that, and I know, for me personally, how unbelievable that experience is of winning it.

“For these guys to not get that experience kills me because I feel like that team deserved it in so many different ways,” he added. “But, unfortunately, it didn’t happen.”

What did happen last season for Scherzer is that he stumbled into a solution for his ongoing thumb issues, one that allowed him to make three post-season starts for the Blue Jays and feel that he can once again pitch on a World Series-calibre team.

The condo he rented in Toronto happened to be furnished with a piano, and around the all-star break last year, he started teaching his kids a little bit of piano. Scherzer had taken lessons when he was young, so he could play at a basic level, but to trigger his memory, he looked up some video tutorials on YouTube.

In the course of teaching himself to play Dr. Dre’s Still D.R.E. — he prefers playing rap songs on the piano — he noticed that his hand was sore afterward.

“Came to the field, played catch, and was like, Whoa, my hand feels better, my thumb feels better now,” said Scherzer, who told reporters that he may be “finally making a breakthrough” after an Aug. 8 clash versus Clayton Kershaw and the Dodgers. “I was like, all right, let me play more piano. Played a little bit more, next start out, felt even better, so then, I chased it. Like, I really tried to fatigue my hand. By the next start, my thumb issue was gone. My hand felt normal again for the first time in like three years. So the light bulb went off, Ah, finally I got it.”

The difference playing the piano made, Scherzer believes, is that it forced him to work through the fingertips, rather than all the grip-strength exercises he’d done which “get the upper part of the forearm from the base of your fingers.”

“I’m working my hand,” he continued. “It wasn’t necessarily the grip strength. That’s my explanation to why this is working.”

Scherzer now plays the piano every day — he bought a portable keyboard for use on the road — and estimates that he totals three hours of playing time between each start. And while he’s added several more rap songs beyond Still D.R.E. to his repertoire, “I don’t consider myself good, but I can play a little bit.”

Self-assessments aside, if not for the “total coincidence” of his Toronto condo having a piano — he’s back in the same unit this season — there wouldn’t be a 19^th season in the majors for him.

“Absolutely not,” Scherzer said. “In fact, I would have retired last year because there are two times I can remember where if I don’t make this next start, if I don’t make this bullpen, like guys, I’m done, I can’t go anymore. It was taking the fun away from pitching, I couldn’t just pitch through the pain because if I pitched through pain, I would blow out my shoulder. It happened multiple times (end of 2023, late in 2024) where I’m pitching through the pain in my thumb and I’m straining the muscles in my shoulder. I just didn’t care to keep blowing out my arm. 

“There weren’t any treatments,” he continued. “I’d done cortisone shots. I’d done dry needling. I’d done shockwave electro-therapy on it. Those were miserable treatments, too. I was just at the end of the line. Fortunately, I was able to keep prolonging and prolonging it, and finally found the solution. Thank God. Because then I was able to get back pitching the way I could, and then obviously, playoff run.”

Followed by Season No. 19, which begins Tuesday, where his motivation is the same as it’s always been.

“To win a World Series. To be part of a team that can win a World Series,” he said. “I still feel like I can check that box of saying that I can be a starting pitcher on a World Series team. I always want to play as long as I can check that box.” 

“It is virtually impossible to go with a five-man rotation all year,” he said. “We came close (in 2016), but that’s unheard of, so we need depth. We have good arms and I try not to look too far ahead. Obviously we have plans for each individual, but there are always adjustments to those plans, things happen here at the major-league level and things seem to work out. But if we have too much pitching, that’s not a bad thing and we’ll make the adjustments where we need to.”

Those words became especially prescient Monday evening when Cody Ponce, 2.1 innings into a promising return to the majors, landed awkwardly while chasing and mishandling Jake McCarthy’s soft chopper to his left and had to be carted off the field.

Ponce told manager John Schneider that he felt his right knee hyperextend on the play and was undergoing an MRI as a messy 14-5 thumping from the Colorado Rockies came to an end. The Blue Jays were anxiously awaiting the results as a possible absence, as well as the spin-off effects on the rest of the pitching staff, loomed large.

“It sucks,” said manager John Schneider. “His first outing, his journey, what he’s been through – hopefully it’s the best news possible (Tuesday).”

Making his first big-league appearance since Oct. 3, 2021, when he gave up four runs in 1.1 innings of relief for Pittsburgh in a 6-3 loss to Cincinnati, Ponce showed why the Blue Jays invested $30 million over three years to sign him over the winter.

Sitting 95.9 m.p.h. with a fastball that he utilized along with his slider, changeup and curveball, he overpowered the Rockies before the injury, getting 15 misses on 29 swings. But he slipped and rolled off the mound for a balk earlier in the at-bat to McCarthy before the fateful chopper, which allowed a Kyle Karros walk to score for a 1-0 Rockies lead.

Ponce tweaked his knee after landing awkwardly on his right leg, possibly as he tried to adjust after mishandling the ball and hopped around for a few steps before dropping to the ground in obvious discomfort.

Surrounded by teammates and training staff, he remained down for an extended period and eventually stood up with some assistance once the medical cart arrived. He buried his face into his arm while being driven off the field, a stunning end to a highly anticipated outing after he worked his way back to North America following three seasons in Japan, plus a brilliant 2025 in Korea, when he set a league record with 252 strikeouts.

“You feel for us, you feel more for him, the last couple of years, getting back here and he’s throwing the ball really well,” said Schneider. “McCarthy was pretty cool, apologizing just in real time, Cody was talking back to him, so I just told him to focus, one minute at a time. There’s a lot of emotion that goes into today. He was really excited. It just sucks to see that happen to him. Just wishing for the best, really.”

His status now opens a major question for the Blue Jays, with Berrios (slated for a two-up bullpen in Florida on Tuesday and a live batting practice Saturday), Yesavage (three-inning, 45-pitch sim game Friday) and Bieber (off a mound for the first time this year Saturday) all weeks away from returning.

Their depth at triple-A Buffalo is also worryingly thin, with so few traditional starter options that Austin Voth was signed recently to provide rotation innings. Grant Rogers, Chad Dallas, Adam Macko, Lazaro Estrada and Yariel Rodriguez are all bulk options the club can consider if the Ponce injury is as severe as it appears, with Chase Lee, the Blue Jays’ final pitching cut, capable of up to two innings in a relief role.

The Blue Jays could push their rotation over the next three weeks, as they’ll need a fifth starter only once – on April 8 – between now and April 18. But that would also mean pulling extra rest days from their starters, something they’ve done in years past, too, and likely want to avoid.

Either way, some degree of refresh for the pitching staff will be needed after the Rockies chewed up the Blue Jays bullpen so badly that catcher Tyler Heineman had to cover the final two innings, allowing five runs.

“We’re covered for (Tuesday), for sure,” said Schneider. “We’re kind of looking at what we’re going to do going forward in the days after (Tuesday).”

The Blue Jays trailed only 2-1 when the game unravelled in the sixth inning, when Rule 5 pick Spencer Miles, in his third up having already thrown a clean 1.1 innings, surrendered a two-run shot to Troy Johnston in the sixth and walked Jordan Beck. Brendon Little then went strikeout, single, walk, double, double, groundout in what finished as an ugly seven-run frame.

Louis Varland, who allowed an unearned run on an Ernie Clement error in the fourth, Miles and Little are sure to be unavailable Tuesday, while Tyler Rogers, used out of necessity in the seventh, has now pitched in three of four games. 

Miles can’t be optioned as a Rule 5 pick, which limits the Blue Jays’ options for a bullpen refresh, and reinforces the challenge of carrying him all season long. As Walker noted Sunday, after Miles’ gutsy debut in the 11^th inning of Saturday’s win over the Athletics, “it’s not going to be easy.”

“He’s got an arm I’d love to keep in this organization, and a personality to match,” he continued. “The health of other players, keeping those starters on a little bit of a roll where they’re getting deep into games so we’re not killing our bullpen, is really important because then you’re forced to make moves and we do have some guys that we like a lot that are in that bullpen. We do have optionable arms, of course, but to keep him up here, it’s going to be tricky. He certainly deserves a shot at it and we’re going to do our best to do it.”

One wrong step from Ponce, with starters Berrios, Yesavage and Bieber not yet on the horizon, is all it took to disrupt the stability of the rotation and leave the bullpen in a tenuous spot. A good outing by Max Scherzer on Tuesday can help everyone reset, but the Blue Jays are suddenly facing an immediate need and a gap until their pitching depth, which before Monday, looked like possible surplus, is going to be ready.

More from Sportsnet

At the Letters: Quite the start to 2026 for the Blue Jays

Blue Jays injury updates: Latest on Berrios, Garcia, Yesavage, Bieber

He appeared to tweak something landing a step on his right leg in pursuit of Jake McCarthy’s soft bouncer, hopped around for a few steps before dropping to the ground in obvious discomfort. The Blue Jays announced he was removed with right knee discomfort.

After the game, manager John Schneider said Ponce was undergoing an MRI.

“He kinda felt it hyperextended a little bit,” Schneider said. “Hoping for the best. It sucks, his first outing, kinda his journey, what he’s been through, so hopefully it’s the best news possible tomorrow.”

Surrounded by teammates and training staff, Ponce stayed down for an extended period and eventually stood up with some assistance once the medical cart arrived. He buried his face into his arm during part of the journey in a combination of discomfort and disappointment.

The 31-year-old — signed to a $30-million, three-year contract during the off-season — was 2.1 innings into his first big-league appearance since Oct. 3, 2021, when he gave up four runs in 1.1 innings of relief for the Pittsburgh Pirates in a 6-3 loss to Cincinnati.

Ponce overpowered the Rockies before the injury, getting 15 misses on 29 swings, but he slipped and rolled off the mound earlier in the at-bat to McCarthy before missing the chopper on which he was injured, allowing a Kyle Karros walk to score.

His status is a major question for the Blue Jays, who have starters Trey Yesavage, Jose Berrios and Shane Bieber all on the injured list, but none of them returning imminently. They have few traditional starter options at triple-A Buffalo, which is why Austin Voth was signed recently to provide rotation innings.

Grant Rogers, Chad Dallas, Adam Macko, Lazaro Estrada and Yariel Rodriguez are all bulk options the club can consider if the Ponce injury is as severe as it appears.

The Blue Jays lost the game 14-5.

More from Sportsnet

At the Letters: Quite the start to 2026 for the Blue Jays

Blue Jays injury updates: Latest on Berrios, Garcia, Yesavage, Bieber

Right out the gate, Kevin Gausman set the tone, striking out the side in the first inning, foreshadowing a dominant six-inning outing in which his 11 strikeouts were the most ever by a Blue Jays starter on opening day. Kazuma Okamoto introduced himself with two nice defensive plays in the field, a fifth-inning walk that catalyzed a two-run fifth, a line-drive single to left-centre in the seventh and another base hit to right in the ninth. And after a familiar demon came back to haunt Jeff Hoffman — a home run, the second of the night for Shea Langeliers, that tied the game during a four-strikeout ninth — Andres Gimenez walked off the Athletics with an RBI single in the bottom half, a 3-2 victory triggering bedlam in a sellout crowd of 42,728.

Exactly 146 days after Game 7 of the World Series ended in a 5-4, 11-inning Los Angeles Dodgers victory, the Blue Jays are so back and so much felt all so familiar.

“Absolutely, that’s what we do,” said Ernie Clement, who followed Okamoto’s walk in the fifth and single in the ninth with doubles to push along the game’s pivotal innings. “It’s not always going to be pretty. We have so many different ways to win a baseball game on any given day, I think you saw it. We’re a team. We pick our guys up. We want Hoff off out there, obviously, and, that’s what it’s all about, picking the boys up when (things) don’t go your way.”

That Okamoto started both Blue Jays rallies out of the seven-hole bodes well for the club’s main offensive addition in the off-season. Replacing all of Bo Bichette’s lost production isn’t solely on him, but he has a chance to be a key component of covering that lost ground, which made where manager John Schneider put him in the batting order reflective of how they see his profile.

“There are going to be days where he’s going to be hitting doubles and home runs,” said Schneider. “However it lines up every night… to have that skill set basically of contact and slug between George, Vladimir and (Okamoto) spread out throughout the lineup, I think makes us really tough to beat.”

That proved true after the sting from the top of the ninth, when Hoffman, who also surrendered a game-tying homer in the ninth inning of Game 7, struck out Nick Kurtz on the first ABS challenge by the Blue Jays, called by Kirk, before Langeliers sent a 98.1 m.p.h. heater over the wall in centre.

Hoffman rallied to strike out three more batters in the inning — Tyler Soderstrom reached on a wild pitch –—so his stuff was where it should be, which is why there won’t be much overreaction from the Blue Jays to this blown save.

“Today’s a perfect example of last year is over,” said Schneider. “There are probably so many narratives you can line up, Gimi hits a ball that Varsh hit with the bases loaded, you guys can have a fricking field day with that. It’s how we persevere into this year that’s important. Watching Hoff’s stuff, I thought it was electric. It was a good hitter putting a good swing on 98 at the top of the zone. Totally different from that regard, but I love the fact that he struck out four.”

Gausman featured the good stuff, too, the only hit against him being Langeliers’ first homer of the night, a solo shot in the fourth on a changeup that spun into the catcher’s happy zone.

“I only threw one changeup… so I’ll re-evaluate that pitch,” Gausman quipped.

Otherwise, he was nails, warming up in a dark stadium as the pre-game festivities took place, not even flinching when he was introduced while he threw in the bullpen. He made a point of looking up when the banner dropped, but otherwise, he led the Blue Jays into the charge, playing a key role in getting an emotional night back on the right equilibrium.

“It’s a lot of the same guys and those other guys right now are fitting in and trying to figure out a team dynamic and our culture and whatnot,” said Gausman. “It feels like we were just here, so it was right back to being with the boys and competing and having fun and giving everything you’ve got, just letting the game lay where it lays.”

Just like all last season, that’s what the Blue Jays did.

Okamoto picked up on the way his teammates “grind out at-bats” and said through interpreter Yusuke Oshima that, “sometimes I’ll be aggressive, but I like to show that part of me, as well, I can grind out at-bats. I feel great on this team and just looking forward to contribute.”

Okamoto did that, as did Clement and Gimenez and so many others, and when the game hit a bump, the resilience that was one of their trademarks a year ago showed up again as if it were muscle memory.

“That’s part of the culture, that’s part of what we’ve built in this clubhouse,” said Clement. “We’re as resilient as it gets and when stuff doesn’t go our way, we bounce back better than any team in the league. That’s a common theme.”

Carried over into a new season that’s now going, 1-of-a-whole-new-162 in the books.

More from Sportsnet

‘Perfect franchise player’: Guerrero, Blue Jays renew World Series quest

Blue Jays’ top breakout candidates for 2026

Given the chaos that followed, it’s an at-bat that’s largely remained out of the Game 7 discourse, a 377-foot drive to centre field, calmy corralled by Tommy Edman for the inning’s first out, seemingly no big whoop. 

But, like so much from that all-timer Game 7, there’s more to the story. 

Guerrero was up 3-0 in the count. He sat changeup and got one. He let loose the swing he wanted, too, sending the pitch out at 100.5 m.p.h. — only at the last second, the ball moved off the barrel just enough to avoid full impact.

“An inch,” he said with disdain, the difference so marginal between a walk-off homer to win the World Series and a frustrating footnote in a forever-haunting loss. “When he released that ball, it was exactly where I was looking for it. It had to be God to move that ball away a little bit from me. That’s just the way it is.”

A harsh reality, one Guerrero and his Toronto Blue Jays teammates have had to learn to live with in the 145 days between that 5-4 Los Angeles Dodgers victory Nov. 1 and Friday night’s season opener against the visiting Athletics. Coverage on Sportsnet and Sportsnet+ begins with Blue Jays Central at 5:30 p.m. ET / 2:30 p.m. PT before first pitch at 7:07 p.m. ET / 4:07 p.m. PT.

Guerrero’s close call, along with the rest of that game’s craziness, “was all I was thinking about” throughout the off-season,” he said.

“I’ve got the entire game in my head” — not only that at-bat, he added — and “every time I went to the weight room, lifted a weight, every time I took a swing, that’s all I had on my mind, Game 7, Game 7. When you think like that, it makes you stronger and hungrier to accomplish that goal.”

The test of that last part is just beginning. One of the challenges before the Blue Jays is finding ways to use Game 7 without being trapped by it. 

J.J. Picollo, the Kansas City Royals general manager who was an assistant in 2014 and 2015 when the club followed up a Game 7 loss in the World Series by winning the Fall Classic a year later, noted how his returning players had “a tremendous focus” on winning a championship, and not just on returning to the playoffs. But he added first that “the focus has to be to get in that position.”

Blue Jays president and CEO Mark Shapiro made a similar point, saying “it’s dangerous thing to think you have to build off last year.”

“There is no such thing as running it back,” he said. “This year is this year. We’re shaped and formed by our past, but we have to organically be a new group of players pursuing a new goal this year and have to let that transpire naturally, as well. … It’s hard as hell. Toughest division in baseball. 162 games. Crap’s going to happen that we’re not ready for. Let’s go. Let’s get started. That’s the approach I think our guys will take and we need to take.”

Max Scherzer noted that he’ll “never get over it — not that one — nor should we (because) that’s how important winning a World Series is to all of us,” before he added that the Blue Jays reached “the highest level of baseball you can possibly play.”

“So now, you get what we’re doing? You get why we do everything that we practice, all the preparation?” he added. “Everybody in here knows what the ending looks like. This is why I do everything the way I do, because I’ve seen how important everything is, how important executions are in the post-season. Once you get that taste in your mouth and you understand that level of baseball, you understand that’s the standard.”

The roster from last year to this one is similar with significant changes. 

Dylan Cease, owner of the franchise’s richest free agent deal at $210 million over seven years, and Cody Ponce were signed to add more velocity and whiff to the rotation. Tyler Rogers was imported to add a dynamic force from a unique submarine arm angle to the bullpen. Kazuma Okamoto and Jesus Sanchez were brought in to help compensate for the loss of Bo Bichette, complementing other key incumbents like George Springer, Alejandro Kirk, Daulton Varsho, Addison Barger and Ernie Clement.

“What we learned last year is we’re not relying on one guy,” said manager John Schneider. “Our goal is to always out-team the other team and use everyone’s skills appropriately to try to win that night. So we’re not looking for Kaz, we’re (not) looking for Addy, we’re not looking for Varsh or anyone to say OK, you need to do X, Y and Z to pick up production that Bo had last year. It’s just how can you help us win and what is important right now. My job is to find spots for them to do that and then just go play.”

Then there’s Guerrero, who a year ago at this time was the prime symbol of the inflection point facing the franchise and now, as he begins his $500-million, 14-year extension, is reflective of the wider stability the franchise has built. 

A walk-off homer against Snell in Game 7 would have been fitting, punctuating a sensational post-season while also marking a moment of deliverance for the 27-year-old, who’s been uniquely linked to the franchise’s fate since he signed as an international free agent in 2015. 

Even without it, his emergence last fall extended beyond numbers, best illustrated by the way he “had some movie lines” in the dugout before Game 6 of the World Series, as Schneider relayed last fall, telling his teammates, “‘if you’re nervous tonight, look at me.’”

In that way, he was not only meeting the moment, but overtaking it.

“We all have responsibilities here,” Guerrero said of the weight on him throughout his time with the Blue Jays. “Obviously, when that was handed to me, I was still pretty young. But the way that I can manage that is just to go out there every day and play hard. When you go out and you do what you’ve got to do, you’re going to cover the responsibility and what it means for the team.”

He’s lived that mantra on the field every day to such a degree that a scout for a rival club who has long watched Guerrero said that the way he ran the bases last spring, before the extension was done, demonstrated that he was setting a standard for the way the team plays.

It’s why ace Kevin Gausman, making his first opening-day start with the Blue Jays on Friday, described Guerrero as “the perfect franchise player.”

“He does everything the right way. He really engages with fans. He loves playing baseball. And if you watch him play, it’s every pitch. He really enjoys every single aspect of the game,” Gausman said. “He did an exceptional job last year of knowing that we had lost Bo at a pretty big time (in September) and I think he kind of looked inward, how can I make up for what Bo is missing … just knew he needed to take his game to another level, and he did. His post-season was incredible, he was unbelievable. Every at-bat, he didn’t give away a single at pitch the entire post-season. … I think Vladdy has just learned, especially with his big contract, he knows that he’s who everyone looks at.”

Now more so than ever, which is among the many ways Guerrero’s life has changed since signing his extension last April. 

Asked to reflect on how different things are for him compared to a spring ago, he said, “the biggest difference is that you don’t have that thought in your head if you’re going to be here or if you’re going to be playing somewhere else. Once you sign that contract, you feel your mind at peace, like, OK, I’m going to be here for a while, for a lot of years. That helps you accomplish a lot of things, be successful, be a better teammate, better human being.”

A human being who enters 2026 with a singular goal for his Blue Jays, a goal which he came one damn inch from achieving a year ago.

“Winning the World Series,” Guerrero said without hesitation. “That’s it.” 

The club enters the season projecting a top-five Competitive Balance Tax payroll, spending at a level that would have been fantasy a decade ago. Making that sustainable is Rogers Centre, with its third renovation unveiled Wednesday, a venue now leveraged by both players and fans, capable of generating revenue at a level competitive with their prime rivals and viable for the foreseeable future.

Put all together, then, there’s a case to be made that the franchise is on its best footing since the 1992-93 World Series years, which is rather remarkable given “the inflection point,” as Shapiro put it, the organization was facing just one year ago. 

Shapiro can now say, “there’s not a moment that we don’t hold ourselves to high expectations and very few moments that we reflect on being satisfied – we’re chasing excellence,” and the evidence is clear both in process and results.

Yet at the same time that the Blue Jays flex within the current baseball structure, there is a threat of widescale upheaval in the industry once the current collective bargaining agreement expires Dec. 1, with owners expected to lock out players immediately after.

Commissioner Rob Manfred has been signalling the owners’ intent to pursue a salary cap, or something akin to it, for months now, and there is persistent talk about their willingness to lose games, maybe even an entire season, in 2027 to a system that restrains team spending.

The players, under new union head Bruce Meyer, will be vehemently opposed to any such change, but with Manfred entering his final labour negotiation before his planned retirement in 2029, the ingredients may be there for him and the owners to go full NHL in 2004-05.

For the Blue Jays, the timing could disrupt what they’ve built and are seeking to capitalize upon, starting this year but also in years to come. And as they celebrate their 50^th season coming off that epic World Series not even five months ago, the game’s wider uncertainties will loom against the continuity they seek to maintain.

“We’ll adapt and function with whatever the rules are at that time,” Shapiro, carefully avoiding opining on the current CBA, said of how potential shifts in the game’s operating system might impact what the Blue Jays have built. “It’s a lot like the Dodgers have said: They’re not doing anything wrong. They’re operating within the system. Frankly, they’re spending what they’re making. It’s the system that exists. We’ll continue to work with the system. If the system changes, we’ll adjust to the change in the system and I’ll let you know then. I’m not going to sit here and try to guess what that system could look like.”

Fair enough, and Shapiro even avoided discussing whether the current CBA is good for the Blue Jays, saying only that, “it’s the one we’re operating within,” without elaboration.

Still, he acknowledged that he’s been getting lots of questions about what might happen next year from employees across the organization, “it’s obviously on people’s minds,” he noted, and some are already wondering what might happen to them next year if games are actually lost.

Baseball, of course, has been down this road before in 1994, and the Blue Jays took a double-hit from the strife, as frustration over a lost World Series and a cockamamie replacement-player scheme timed up with a downturn in the club’s fortunes, events that spun into a 21-year playoff drought. 

History is more guide than blueprint, which is why Shapiro said “it’s dangerous to compare two eras and say the exact same thing” will repeat. But back in 1995-95, the Blue Jays had at least brought their initial build-up out of the 1977 expansion to fruition with two titles. An interruption now, in the midst of a competitive window that’s been deftly readjusted, carries a very different opportunity-cost.

The Blue Jays have roughly $82 million in payroll commitments coming off the books at the end of this season, so if baseball did suddenly find itself in a hard-cap world, the adjustment for them should be easier than for other top spenders. But if the financial edge they’ve used in recent off-seasons is suddenly gone, maintaining a big-league roster that’s a legitimate contender will suddenly be more complicated. 

All of which adds to the stakes for all clubs this season, Blue Jays included.

They are heading into a year-long 50^th-season celebration, coming off the club’s best year since 1993, with a roster legitimately capable of going on another run. As Shapiro said, “we have as much as, if not more than any other fanbase, more than any other front office, more than any other group of players, an incredible season to look forward to.”

Also true is what he told his worried employees: “You will not find happiness thinking about what’s coming in six months.”

Though much of what lies ahead is conjecture, the conjecture is driven by messaging Manfred has worked to anchor in the minds of players, so this stuff isn’t being invented. An optimistic outlook is that the rhetoric to this point is designed to soften up players for what will end up being more minor concessions, but that won’t be certain until the sides start negotiating seriously, which might not be until games are cancelled next spring.

In markets that see baseball’s current CBA as a broken system that keeps them from competing with the Dodgers and other top spenders, all that is reason for hope. In Toronto, that’s reason for compartmentalization.

“What I’ve encouraged from a leadership position for (employees) to do is to focus on what they can control … A celebration of our 50th for our fans. A celebration of last year’s American League championship. And a mountain to climb, and excellence to chase and pursue, to try to achieve a world championship. At the end of that, we’ll address that and start to think about it,” said Shapiro, who added later, “I certainly have opinions. Not going to comment on anything more than that now because I want people, I want our players and I want our staff and I want our organization and more than anything, I want our fans to focus on what I hope to be a magical year ahead.”

Sound advice, as if there were ever a season to live for the moment, this might be the one.

More from Sportsnet

Shapiro outlines key themes for Blue Jays’ season ahead of Opening Day

Blue Jays announce 26-man roster for Opening Day

Innings of one out and four outs. Hitting in and out of order. Baserunners put on as needed. Outs that went for hits and hits that went for outs. Everyone got their work in and bounced, bound for Toronto where workouts loom ahead of Friday’s Opening Day.

“There were a few firsts,” manager John Schneider, fresh off signing a two-year extension, said afterwards. “Just things that we wanted to see, a lot of little detailed things that were trying to look for. A little quirky but glad we got it in.”

Final box checked, the Blue Jays left Florida behind for the journey north with a couple of roster calls remaining ahead of Wednesday’s deadline. The final spot in the bullpen is down to intriguing Rule 5 pick Spencer Miles and side-armer Chase Lee, who can be optioned to triple-A Buffalo; while the last spot on the bench is between incumbent Davis Schneider, who has options remaining, and Leo Jimenez, who does not.

As always, there is an element of roster management at play, as the Blue Jays could open with both Miles and Jimenez, retain Lee and Davis Schneider in the system and see how it all plays out once the schedule gets rolling. If they go the other way, Miles would need to be put through waivers and returned to the San Francisco Giants if he goes unclaimed, while Jimenez would also need to be put on waivers, where he’s likely to be claimed.

All four were travelling to Toronto with the club, leading to a “couple of sleepless nights for those guys,” John Schneider said, while GM Ross Atkins explained that “when we have time, we like to use it” since “there’s always the potential of more information coming into the fold.”

Some of the considerations revolving around the bench decision is that the Blue Jays “probably have a little bit more depth in the outfield than you do the infield, that plays into it,” said John Schneider. 

If Jimenez were to be claimed, prospect Josh Kasevich would be positioned as the next man up and while he impressed at camp, having a backup with big-league experience in the event of an Ernie Clement or Andres Gimenez injury makes some sense for a win-now team. The Blue Jays are weighing that against the power offered by Davis Schneider, who’s provided important impact in recent seasons and can cover second but not third or short.

“In terms of how I would use either one of them, Schneid would be similar to how he has been used in years past or last year and Leo we would probably target against left-handed starters,” said John Schneider.

The bullpen call is, in some ways even more complicated, as Lee is the more predictable option, an important consideration for the multi-inning, mop-up role the Blue Jays are envisioning.

But Miles is super intriguing with high-90s velocity and even though he’s very raw, having appeared in only 10 minor-league games over the past four seasons due to injury, finding a way to carry him all year could turn into a clever dice-roll on someone who in time could develop into a high-leverage arm.

Miles threw more than an inning three times in the spring, including two innings Wednesday versus Baltimore followed by a clean frame Sunday against Tampa Bay.

“I wish we had a little bit more time to see the recovery part of it, but just have been very clear with how we see that role unfolding for whoever it is,” said Schneider. “Letting them know the conversations that we have as a staff when that time comes in terms of bullpen availability and protecting some other guys, but still going out and trying to keep us in a game or help us win a game.”

As those considerations continue – and remember that the first iteration of the roster is very far from the last – the Blue Jays can set their sights on Friday’s opener versus the visiting Athletics.

Cody Ponce and Max Scherzer will join the team later this week after tune-up outings in Florida and they’ll be joined by Trey Yesavage, Jose Berrios and Shane Bieber, each opening the year on the injured list.

Eric Lauer, who’ll pitch Sunday’s series finale versus the Athletics, logged five innings Monday and comes away from camp most happy about the progress he made with his changeup, the least used of his five pitches at eight per cent.

“In-season you’re out there competing, trying to just get guys out, so to try to mix in your worst pitch is kind of hard to do – this is the time to do that,” he said. “Being able to throw it pretty much at any time has been very helpful as far as getting the reps in and seeing how hitters are reacting to it. That’s been the biggest thing for me, making sure that was coming along the way I wanted to so that I could actually use it in season as a weapon, probably in more specific ways.”

His plan is for “definitely more” changeups this season, he added. “I’m trying to get that up to probably 10 per cent, 15 maybe. The more even spread I can have throughout all my pitches, I think, the better everything’s going to play off each other.”

SHORT HOPS: Kazuma Okamoto played first base in the intrasquad game and the Blue Jays see him as their main option at the position on days Vladimir Guerrero Jr. starts at DH. Beyond him, John Schneider mentioned Ernie Clement as an option for first base, if needed.

• Nathan Lukes had a stressful end of camp the last few years, waiting to learn his fate. Not this year, as John Schneider approached him mid-table-tennis-game and confirmed that he was good. The addition of Jesus Sanchez may have seemed to complicate his usage this year, but the manager said, “there’s a clear pathway for them to both contribute, for sure. Really trying to get Sanch in against certain right-handed pitchers. … so looking for the right spots for him and then at the same time looking for the right spots for Nate.”

• The MVP of camp, Schneider said, is always the person who does the daily schedule, so congratulations to first-year major-league field co-ordinator Eric Duncan. As for players, “I’ll give you three,” he continued. “From a reliever’s standpoint, it’s Brendon Little. From a starter’s standpoint it is Max Scherzer – and he’ll love that I gave him that one. And from a position player’s standpoint, I’m going to go with Kaz, just for the adjustment that he’s going through coming over and how quickly he picked up on everything while still contributing and still showing the talent that he has. It’s not an easy task.”

And Daulton Varsho with five homers and .380/.426/.820 batting line? “Oh yeah, Daulton. I’m going to keep the carrot at the end of the stick in a contract year so he’s not getting all the awards right now. But he was pretty good.”

More from Sportsnet

Blue Jays assign Eloy Jimenez, Yariel Rodriguez to minor-league camp

Blue Jays bet on stability with extensions for Atkins, Schneider

Stability and continuity allow executives and coaches to adjust and adapt as needed without forcing widescale organizational turnover, allowing for more structured decision-making, per Shapiro.

“That’s a very difficult model to maintain in professional sports, where emotion and momentum factors into so many decisions,” Shapiro added then. “But if you have the strength to do it, it usually is a benefit.”

Over the past few years, the Blue Jays offer some proof of concept for that argument, which is why general manager Ross Atkins and manager John Schneider each received contract extensions Monday.

The organization could easily have reacted to a dismal 2024 season, on the heels of a frustrating wild-card series loss in 2023, by making leadership changes that would have totally reset the team’s approach. Instead, the Blue Jays stayed the course, and allowed the leaders in place to learn from what had gone wrong and apply those lessons.

It resulted in an AL East title and a trip to the World Series.

Shapiro, who had been on an expiring contract, received a five-year extension that runs through 2030 in December, while Monday’s deals tack on another five years for Atkins, now signed through 2031, and two years for Schneider, under contract through 2028.

Both Atkins and Schneider had been on contracts that expired after this year.

“It makes it a lot easier when you have guys that have been here, players and now myself and Ross and Mark that are pulling in the same direction,” Schneider said. “I feel like we took a big step forward in that last year and really excited to continue to do that. And everyone understands where we are and what we’re trying to do and who we’re trying to do it with. Similar to locking up Vladimir (Guerrero Jr.) or (Alejandro) Kirk, you know what you’re going to be dealing with every day and for years to come. Just really excited to continue to work with those guys.”

Atkins, hired in December 2015 about a month after Shapiro became president and CEO, is already the second-longest tenured GM in franchise history with 10 seasons under his belt. If he completes this contract, he’ll be within striking distance of Pat Gillick’s brilliant 17-year run that launched him toward the Hall of Fame. 

Shapiro, meanwhile, is in the midst of the longest uninterrupted stretch for a Blue Jays president and CEO, second in total years only to Paul Beeston.

The franchise’s back-to-back World Series victories in 1992 and 1993 occurred under their watch and as the Blue Jays celebrate their 50th season in 2026, Shapiro and Atkins are seeking a title to punctuate their own era.

Schneider, heading into his fourth full season as Blue Jays manager after taking over on interim basis for the fired Charlie Montoyo in July 2022, is currently fourth among Blue Jays managers at 560 games, behind only giants Bobby Cox (647), John Gibbons (1,582) and Cito Gaston (1,764).

A 12th-round pick in 2002 who topped out at triple-A during a six-year playing career interrupted by concussions, Schneider is a Blue Jays lifer who’s touched nearly every level in the system.

Last spring, after the 2024 mess, the Blue Jays quietly exercised his 2025 option, a sign of faith in his work that was rewarded throughout the year. Schneider said the extension talks this spring led to “a couple of sleepless nights,” but added that extending with the organization “is really cool, something I don’t take for granted.”

“The conversations that we have, I don’t want to say daily, but pretty regularly, were pretty forthcoming and telling that they value stability, they value what I do and how I do it here,” Schneider said.

“Ultimately, negotiations are different than conversations. I don’t want to say I expected us to arrive here, but I feel like we’re all pulling in the same direction and allowed last year to be a little bit more free, if you will. Excited to get that done last year and just really excited to get it done for the next couple years.”

The team identity he and the coaching staff helped the players build last season was pivotal. Now, they’re looking to carry it into 2026.

Centre fielder Daulton Varsho noted how the Blue Jays really bought into a mindset in 2025, a byproduct of Schneider’s growth over the past three years they’ve been together.

“It was interesting to see him starting to understand guys, how to interact with people, knowing when he needs to put an arm around a guy saying, ‘Hey, it’s OK, we’ll get you through this,’ and when to jump somebody and say, ‘You’ve got to start moving here,’” said Varsho.

“Obviously he’s had great players come in here to try to help him out when he needs to do that, but happy for him and his family.”

None of that happens if the Blue Jays don’t stay the course with their leadership group during the dire days of 2024. Given the chance to recover and rally, they did just that, earning themselves the opportunity to keep doing it moving forward.

More from Sportsnet

Athletics’ Luis Severino to start Opening Day against Blue Jays

Blue Jays sign Ross Atkins, John Schneider to contract extensions

Atkins gets another five years while Schneider gets an extra two. Both had deals due to expire at the end of this season.

The announcements Monday morning, as the team prepared to break from camp in Dunedin, were expected, especially once Shapiro’s own extension through 2030 was completed in December.

Both Atkins and Schneider were central to the Blue Jays’ turnaround to the AL pennant last season after finishing last in the AL East the year prior.

In the regular season, a 20-win turnaround saw the Blue Jays take the division at 94-68 while leading MLB with 49 comeback victories.

The Blue Jays then beat the New York Yankees in the ALDS in four games and the Seattle Mariners in the ALCS in seven, before falling to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series despite taking a lead into the ninth inning of Game 7.

Shapiro believes stability in leadership is an essential to successful sports franchises, as organizations “that react year-to-year, season-to-season on fast cycles … are kind of perpetually spinning,” he said in a 2021 interview.

“The ones that have the strength and resilience to stick with some stability and continuity, even through the down times, gives those people the ability to make adjustments because things rarely go the way that you think they’re going to go. Continuity gives you the ability to course-adjust and to adapt a plan, because a plan will almost certainly have to be adapted and adjusted.”

A prime example of that came after a miserable 2024 season, when the Blue Jays faced questions about their future direction as Shapiro and franchise cornerstones Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette were all on expiring deals. Rather than change personnel, the Blue Jays front office adapted after a dismal down year, signed Guerrero to an extension and went on to reach the World Series. 

Atkins, 52, joined the Blue Jays in December 2015 and has since led the club to a 777-741 record over 10 seasons, including five post-season appearances.

“Ross has done an outstanding job in building a deep foundation with an accomplished baseball operations team, best-in-class resources, and a collaborative culture. I am a strong supporter of stability and continuity, and Ross continues to make us better,” Blue Jays president and CEO Mark Shapiro said in a statement provided by the team.

“It’s easy for me to believe in Ross, as I’ve seen him transition from player to young front-office executive to established MLB executive, and I am extremely confident his leadership will help us achieve our collective goal of bringing World Series championships back to Canada.”

Atkins’ Blue Jays teams have produced 27 all-star selections, eight Gold Glove winners, eight Silver Sluggers, four AL Cy Young finalists, a Cy Young Award winner, and two AL MVP finalists.

Last April, he helped the Blue Jays reach a landmark 14-year, $500-million contract extension with Guerrero Jr., which kicks in this season.

In wake of losing the World Series, Atkins signed starter Dylan Cease to a seven-year, $210-million contract — the largest for a free agent in franchise history.

While longtime shortstop Bo Bichette left for the New York Mets, Atkins also brought in Japanese third baseman Kazuma Okamoto, reliever Tyler Rogers and starter Cody Ponce while re-signing three-time Cy Young winner Max Scherzer.

Schneider, 46, finished second in AL Manager of the Year voting last year as the Jays won their first division title in a decade.

He has skipped the Blue Jays since midway through the 2022 season, leading the team to a 303-257 record to stand fourth in franchise history in wins.

Atkins praised Schneider’s commitment to players in a statement issued by the team.

“Schneids understands what it takes to build a winning environment and works tirelessly to create exactly that. His blend of emotional intelligence and deep baseball knowledge truly sets him apart in an incredibly competitive industry. His constant drive to improve shows in the preparation he brings each day, and we look forward to his continued leadership,” Atkins said.

Schneider said negotiations on his extension went through spring training, leading to some “sleepless nights.”

“I tried to just really focus on the present, what I’m doing every day. But yeah, that was a little different having those conversations, those back-and-forths. It’s always interesting when you’re negotiating. You hear it with players. But was pretty confident we’d arrive here, and took a little bit of time, but think that what we got accomplished in spring training was important — not me, the team, that is — and ready for the season,” he said.

Schneider was handed the full-time manager gig in October 2022 after leading the Blue Jays to the top wild-card spot before being swept by the Seattle Mariners.

He helped the Blue Jays return to the playoffs in 2023, where they again were swept — this time by the Minnesota Twins — and missed the post-season entirely in 2024, leading to questions about his future before the World Series run.

Prior to taking over the MLB club, he spent 15 seasons in the Blue Jays’ minor-league system, including six as a player before transitioning to coaching. 

He managed Guerrero Jr. and Bichette throughout the minors, including a championship run in double-A.

“I am ecstatic to continue leading the Blue Jays as we work to bring our incredible fans a championship team. It’s been a privilege to be part of this organization for nearly 25 years, and the work the Blue Jays continue to do excites me every day,” Schneider said in a statement issued by the team.

Toronto’s Opening Day for the 2026 season is Friday, when it faces the Athletics at Rogers Centre.

–with files from Sportsnet Staff

More from Sportsnet

Guerrero, Cease shine in rout of Rays as Blue Jays’ final roster calls loom

Macko, Bastardo, Rodriguez, Alcala don’t make Blue Jays’ opening-day roster

One is an intrasquad game Monday afternoon, when Eric Lauer is slated to throw five innings against triple-A Buffalo. While the other is far more dramatic – finalizing the opening day roster, a task that inched forward when Yariel Rodriguez, Jorge Alcala and Rule 5 pick Angel Bastardo were informed they did not make the club. 

That seems to leave righty Chase Lee, Rule 5 pick Spencer Miles and lefty Adam Macko among the internal candidates still in play for the final spot in the bullpen, one destined for a reliever capable of throwing multiple innings. An external candidate, perhaps even Connor Seabold, who impressed in camp before being granted his release Saturday, is possible, too, as names shake loose with other teams also making roster calls.

The Blue Jays must also decide what to do with Leo Jimenez, who is out of options and needs to clear waivers if he does not make the club, each call coming down to the wire as both short- and medium-term seasonal asset management are factored into the mix.

“Definitely part of it,” said manager John Schneider. “There are some ins and outs to it … and it’s not just for Opening Day, but throughout the course of the year, so seeing how everything fits together and not just the individual skill-set of one person. Yeah, we are trying to field the best team, for sure, and trying to win every single game that we can. 

“But how does each decision affect someone else? How does it affect the depth of your organization and your 40-man roster?”

As things stand, the Blue Jays bullpen is set to include Jeff Hoffman, Tyler Rogers, Louis Varland, Brendon Little, Braydon Fisher, Mason Fluharty and Tommy Nance. 

The role has the potential to be short-term while Yimi Garcia, who is said to be regaining his usual velocity after elbow surgery last summer, builds up. Injured starters Trey Yesavage, due to start a minor-league game Wednesday, Jose Berrios and Shane Bieber will also, eventually, be on the horizon.

With Lauer in the rotation out of the gate, there’s no length option in the bullpen, and an optionable arm that can be subbed in and out as needed would give the Blue Jays more flexibility to manage usage needs. 

“It helps,” said Schneider. “We’ve spent the last few days trying to put ourselves in our own shoes a week or two weeks from now, when it is a short start, and there are some innings covered by the bullpen, what does that look like for the following day, even? Who can do that? Who can do that both performance-wise, who could do that contractually, as well, too, and keep you covered going forward.”

Lee and Macko both have options, while Miles, as a Rule 5 pick who topped out at 98.1 m.p.h. during a clean inning Sunday, must remain on the roster all season or be offered back to the San Francisco Giants.

Both Miles and Bastardo, plucked from the Boston Red Sox, have shown big-league stuff, but both are raw, which makes carrying them on a win-now team a challenge. The Blue Jays can try to trade them to other clubs or attempt to make a deal with their original clubs to retain their rights, too.

Cease ready to go: Dylan Cease checked the usual boxes over five shutout innings Sunday, sitting 97.3 m.p.h. and topping out at 98.8 as he held the Rays to three hits and two walks with six strikeouts on 83 pitches. More notable is the way he also effectively worked in 12 sinkers, eight sweepers and eight curveballs, a successful application of his attempts to diversify his repertoire this spring.

“Honestly, I’m in a better spot than I was even really expecting,” said Cease. “I like where I’m at mechanically, mixing in changeups, and I’m throwing a bunch of different pitches for strikes for the most part. I like where I’m at.”

So does John Schneider, who said a focus this spring has been on ways for him to use his pitches “a little bit differently” and “be a little bit less predictable.” Cease’s dominant weapons are his fastball and slider, and they were again Sunday, when the “plan was to use the changeup, get the curveball in early for strikes … and not be so reliant” on his primary offerings.

“Those are the things we’re talking about,” Schneider added. “The stuff is the stuff, but how to use it and try to have a few more weapons to get a little bit deeper into games.”

Vladdy ready: Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hit the first of three two-run homers in the first inning off Rays starter Nick Martinez, throttled for 11 runs over 3.2 innings while re-entering a miserable outing three times. 

Guerrero added a single in the second inning and a walk in the fourth, noting afterwards that “I feel good right now, but there are still a couple of days to get better,” before Friday’s opening day.

Already this spring, Guerrero’s been in high gear, batting .444/.476/.944 in five games for the Dominican Republic at the World Baseball Classic, a run that followed his monster 29-hit, 15-RBI post-season.

Carrying that into 2026 is his goal.

“I’m trying to stay where I was at the end of the year and October, but I don’t want to think about it much because it’s in the past,” Guerrero said through interpreter Hector Lebron. “I don’t want to keep thinking about that. I want to keep doing what I did when I was there.”

To that end, he shoehorned his off-season training plan into a shorter winter and likes where he’s at physically, for both the regular season and beyond.

“I did everything that I could,” he said, “and I feel like I prepared myself very well to play the extra month this year.”

Quotable: “Definitely like last year, we’re all together, we’re playing together, everybody knows what to do. And when you have that on the team, good things happen.” – Vladimir Guerrero Jr. on how the Blue Jays shaped out over the course of the spring

More from Sportsnet

Berrios building up to rejoin Blue Jays after WBC denials, ‘weird’ injury

How Blue Jays prospect Aaron Parker manages diabetes

A chance to pitch for the national team, at home, in front of children Valentina, Sebastian and Diego Jose, would have meant so much to the family, and a similar opportunity may not come up again.

“That’s the tough part,” Berríos said. “But I guess I understand what the situation is, dealing with the process. The beginning was frustrating, but my kids still had a chance to go to the games in Puerto Rico for that first round. They enjoyed every game. They were so pumped up. They learned. So, that’s great.

“Being there and pitching in front of them, that’s something I’m going to miss. But there’s nothing I can do.”

Indeed.

The same applies to the even bigger shock Berríos received when he was denied insurance a second time, ahead of the WBC quarterfinals, when an MRI revealed the stress fracture in his right elbow, causing him to open a season on the injured list for the first time.

The 31-year-old had made three spring starts to that point, his velocity increasing each time out, and had no idea the injury was there.

Berríos was progressing so well this spring, the Puerto Rican team built him into their plans for the quarterfinals, with manager Yadier Molina revealing that he’d piggyback behind Seth Lugo before word of the insurance denial dropped hours later.

If not for the preceding physical, Berríos would have continued to pitch unaware of the stress fracture.

“It was weird, knowing I’ve been throwing the ball pretty well, felt strong, healthy,” Berríos said of his initial reaction to the news. “Then I saw the picture, I saw what I got there, but how I’m feeling is still weird, because I feel great. They stopped me from pitching. They wanted to make sure I feel great, and nothing is going to get worse, so that’s why I stopped.”

He and the Blue Jays charted a path forward during a visit to specialist Dr. Keith Meister last week, when “I asked him multiple times, like four or five times, ‘Do I need surgery?’” Berríos relayed. “He said no each time. He told me that I can throw the ball, just keep building back up and feeling healthy and great.”

Berríos is doing precisely that now, playing catch, building up his arm strength while the stress fracture heals. A bullpen is slated for next Friday, when the Blue Jays open the season at home against the Athletics. His hope is to miss no more than a month.

A year ago, Berríos received the opening-day assignment to begin an uneven season that saw him post a 3.83 ERA through his first 22 starts, but a 5.31 mark through his final nine outings ahead of his first injured-list stint in 10 big-league seasons. Elbow inflammation kept him on the sidelines throughout the post-season and he controversially left the team before the World Series in what he described this spring as “a bad decision” that he apologized for this spring.

The injuries may simply be the toll of a decade of durability catching up with him – he made 30 starts in each of the seven previous full seasons plus the maximum of 12 outings during the pandemic summer of 2020 – although he doesn’t necessarily think that’s the case.

“I mean, some players avoid that, so hopefully I can keep avoiding that, too,” he said. “Nothing’s been major, no surgery. But to be out there, playing every game is a great stress, not just for the pitchers but the position players, too. We are like a champion, trying to keep ourselves and our bodies healthy out there every day.”

Berríos is working back to that goal, confident that what he felt were gains with his fastball and his command will be there again once he’s ready to get back up on a mound.

“My breaking ball and changeup were there, too,” he said. “I’ve been feeling pretty well, ready to compete and I was so close. So, just waiting for the lights to turn on.”

More from Sportsnet

Blue Jays’ lineup vs. Skenes, Pirates hints at team’s preferred batting order

Blue Jays option Estrada to triple-A, grant Seabold his release

George Springer at leadoff with Vladimir Guerrero Jr. at the three-hole, as he prefers. Nathan Lukes in between them at two with fellow lefty Addison Barger at four, followed by Alejandro Kirk, Daulton Varsho, Kazuma Okamoto, Ernie Clement and Andres Gimenez.

“It’s a pretty good idea of how I’m thinking about it, how we’re thinking about it,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider said ahead of an 8-3 loss. “Happens to be a really good starter for them in Paul, and how we can best combat that. We’re not looking at results, but at how the lineup flows. And how we start may not be how we finish. There’s still a little bit of, I don’t want to say unknown with Kaz, but I don’t want to pigeonhole him in the seven-hole by any means. I don’t want to pigeonhole Ernie anywhere. A lot will depend on the starter. But I feel good about the top six, and depending on who’s in there, there could be a little movement between two and six, something like that. Just seeing how this rolls out.”

The Blue Jays didn’t manage much against Skenes, who allowed one hit and three walks with five strikeouts over four shutout innings, but they did build a couple of innings against the reigning NL Cy Young Award winner.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr., for instance, narrowly missed a three-run homer in the third when he launched a 2-2 changeup out at 108.3 m.p.h. just foul, before he struck out on an elevated 96.4 m.p.h. heater on the next pitch. 

Regardless, the reps against a pitcher of that calibre are what matter most with opening day less than a week away and hitters trying to lock down their timing as much as possible.

“Absolutely,” said Ernie Clement, who went 0-for-3 in his second game since returning from the World Baseball Classic. “Those are the guys we’re going to be facing during the season, so as good as the competition can be, that’s welcomed.”

Worth remembering is that the Blue Jays’ lineup will be far from static throughout the season, as last year they used 146 different orders, maxing out at three games for four separate alignments.

They also frequently adjusted in-game, taking more of their plate appearances with platoon advantage for the first time since 2019, although what they also layered in last year was matching up batter and pitcher profiles more, as well.

For context, the Cleveland Guardians led the majors in taking 78.6 per cent of their plate appearances with platoon advantage last year, while the Houston Astros were last at 35.2. Second-last were the two-time World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers at 38.3 per cent.

“Going back a couple years, we learned that, for the most part, it’s pretty advantageous to get the handedness advantage and then, within that, last year we dove into more swing/pitch specifics and how we can combat whatever is on the mound,” said Schneider. “We talked about cohesion a lot last year, not just with the players in the clubhouse, but the staff to the players, (the hitting coaches) identifying certain things to look for in certain pitchers and then what our guys can or can’t do in those situations. …

“There’s also the human element that goes into it, too. If a guy is working on something and getting better at something and obviously having success, that’s where it’s on me to trust my eyes and see what’s going on and take that route, as well.”

That’s the needle the Blue Jays will try to thread once again this season as they try to replicate the offensive approach and production that carried them to the World Series.

“You saw it at the end of last year with how it was one through nine,” said Clement. “How at the bottom we’re going to be really, really pesky and tough at-bats, move runners over and do all the little things. Obviously, George and Vladdy and Lukey and all those guys at the top, they’ll do their thing. And, everybody’s very unselfish in our lineup. So, that helps things flow. We’re going to try to push as many runs across in as many different ways as possible.”

Roster moves: Two more candidates for the final spot in the Blue Jays bullpen fell out of the race when Connor Seabold, in camp on a minor-league deal, was granted his release and Lazaro Estrada was optioned to triple-A Buffalo.

Believed to still be in play are: 

• Optionable 40-man roster candidates Chase Lee, who threw 1.2 innings Friday; and Adam Macko, who allowed three runs in an inning in a 5-4 Spring Breakout loss to the Philadelphia Phillies on Saturday but showed well for Canada in two World Baseball Classic outings.

• Off-the-roster Yariel Rodriguez, who is capable of giving the Blue Jays the type of multi-inning protection and durability they’re seeking, and is essentially optionable if added because of the amount of money he’s owed.

• Promising but raw Rule 5 candidates Spencer Miles, who must be carried all season long for the Blue Jays to retain his rights, and Angel Bastardo, who allowed two runs on a hit and two walks with two strikeouts Saturday and only needs 90 days of active service time after spending all of last season on the 60-day injured list.

Gausman gets going

Kevin Gausman headed into last season weighing around 220 pounds, heavier at the end of spring than in recent years, and finished the longest season of his career in the 185-pound range. That’s why this spring, he’s reported for daily duty and crushed breakfast, most recently overnight oats with “some nice fruit to go with it.”

“I switched it up,” he said. “I was kind of vegging out there for a couple of weeks, so tried to kind of tone it down a little bit.”

The bulking has been worth it, as he feels that he’s in a similar spot at the beginning of this season as he was at the start of last year. He capped off his spring with five-plus innings and 78 pitches against the Pirates, allowing four runs, three earned, on six hits and three walks with two strikeouts.

More importantly, he sat 94 m.p.h. with his fastball, got up to 97.2 when needed and got 10 whiffs, four on his heater, five on the split, plus one on the slider. Holding his velocity tells him that “my arm is with me and I have a stable foundation for what’s to come.”

“I feel good,” he said. “To be honest, I thought I’d feel a lot worse than I do, so it’s always nice when you surprise yourself when you’re 35. More than anything now, it’s about getting used to sitting down and getting back up and doing it six, seven, eight times every five days.”

Quotable: “LSU, Go Tigers. I appreciate the national championship that he brought to LSU. I know Paul a little bit. He’s about as pro as it gets. He really embodies that military persona of being as prepared as you possibly can for every situation. Really beyond his years and has really only been pitching for a handful of years. The sky’s the limit with him, hopefully he can just stay healthy and keep doing what he’s been doing.” – Kevin Gausman, on what he appreciates about fellow LSU alum Paul Skenes

More from Sportsnet

John Schneider announces Blue Jays’ rotation for start of season

Blue Jays’ Max Scherzer looks and feels good in key start before season