Blue Jays' rookie-heavy lineup shows flashes of brilliance and inexperience

MINNEAPOLIS — We’ve known for some time that Toronto Blue Jays’ plan for September was going to be about development and assessing who could help the club return to contention in 2025. As the calendar flipped to the first day of the season’s final month, manager John Schneider pretty much highlighted that notion with a neon marker.

There were no veterans in the lineup for Sunday’s series finale against the Minnesota Twins. George Springer was given the day off along with Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Alejandro Kirk and Daulton Varsho. 

That left five rookies in a starting nine that had combined for a total of just 779 games at the major-league level. For added perspective, consider that Ernie Clement and his 255 MLB games accounted for 32.7 per cent of that figure. 

Let that sink in for a second. Clement, who’s only played in parts of four big-league seasons, was the big dog in the lineup on Sunday.

The Baby Blue Jays put together a scrappy team effort but ended up falling, 4-3, to the Twins in front of 32,774 at Target Field. Royce Lewis clubbed a three-run home run in the eighth inning off Blue Jays reliever Chad Green to complete a come-from-behind win for the home side.

While the Blue Jays’ offence was relatively quiet compared to the season-high 15 runs they scored on Saturday night, this game wasn’t without excitement. Chief among that was Leo Jimenez’s brilliant catch that will go down among the best defensive showings of the club’s season. 

“It's an unbelievable play,” Schneider said. “Just no regard for the wall.”

In the fourth inning, Jimenez gave chase to a Max Kepler fly ball in foul territory. The Blue Jays second baseman tracked it down and caught the ball before crashing through the netting along the right-field stands.

“I was very committed to catching that ball, no matter what,” Jimenez said following the game. “I thought I had a little bit more room between me and the fans but I basically caught it and I went over.”

Jimenez was fine and stayed in the game, but things could have been a lot worse. His left cleat became tangled in the netting, causing him to overextend his leg and forcing his body into a “whiplash motion.” As well, his back also landed hard in the stands. 

“I remember hearing people like, ‘Oh, bring an ambulance,’” said Jimenez, adding that he lost his PitchCom device in the stands. “In my head I was like, ‘I'm okay, guys. I just need a little bit of time to get everything together so I can stand up and just keep playing the game.’”

Adding to the excellence of the play was that Blue Jays right-fielder Addison Barger grabbed the ball from a sprawled-out Jimenez and fired it home to stop Twins baserunner Austin Martin from scoring. Now, that sequence was quickly nullified when umpires ruled that the ball was out of play because Jimenez was beyond the wall but, nonetheless, it was an alert read by Barger. 

“Barger told me, ‘Hey, hey, give me the ball, give me the ball,’” Jimenez recounted with a grin. “After the game, I'm like, ‘Hey, you're not even worried about me, man? Ask how am I doing.’”

As to be expected when you field a lineup this young, there was also a costly learning experience. In the seventh inning, Brooks Lee produced a slow grounder to Blue Jays third baseman Luis De Los Santos, who fielded it cleanly but couldn’t execute on a throw to second base that ended up sailing into right field. 

That squandered the opportunity for an inning-ending 5-4-3 double play that would have preserved the Blue Jays’ 1-0 lead. Instead, the next batter, Carlos Santana, tied with the game with a ground out.  

“Those errors happen, but we trust those guys,” said Schneider. 

The Blue Jays took the lead in the eighth inning when Jimenez was hit by a pitch from Twins reliever Griffin Jax with the bases loaded. Joey Loperfido added another run with a ground out to shortstop that pushed the score to 3-1.

The Blue Jays took the lead in the eighth inning when Jimenez was hit by a pitch from Twins reliever Griffin Jax with the bases loaded. Joey Loperfido added another run with a groundout to shortstop that pushed the score to 3-1.

However, Green couldn’t hold the lead in the bottom of the frame. He allowed consecutive singles to Ryan Jeffers and Martin before surrendering the home run to Lewis on a 2-2 slider in the middle of the zone. The ball barely crossed the fence and wasn’t hit particularly hard, exiting Lewis’s bat at 91.1 m.p.h.

“Wasn't quite sure if he got it,” said Schneider. “He's a strong dude. Didn't even get it but he got it out of here.”

That erased what was a solid game from the Blue Jays’ bullpen, which did an admirable job picking up for starter Yariel Rodriguez, who was removed after three scoreless innings and 57 pitches.

Schneider said afterward that the Blue Jays will continue to closely monitor Rodriguez’s workload for the remainder of the season. They plan to keep the right-hander on his regular turn in the rotation, but his length in games will depend on a few factors, including how he’s throwing and how he’s feeling.

Rodriguez said he’s on board with the plan. 

“We talked about it,” Rodriguez said through translator Hector Lebron. “I'm very pleased with that. My body right now feels a little bit tired. So, controlling my innings, I think, is the right way to do it.”

There’s no need to read too much into the Blue Jays’ youthful lineup on Sunday. Springer, Guerrero Jr., and Kirk are all fine and while Varsho is dealing with a right shoulder issue, he said before the game that he’s not worried and doesn’t expect it to limit him going forward.

Schneider said resting those players on Sunday offered an opportunity to maximize the Blue Jays’ off days on Monday and Thursday, which arrive on the heels of a stretch of games in 17 straight days. 

That, in turn, provided a chance to thrust the young players into the spotlight, for better and for worse. 

“They'll get over this [loss],” said Schneider. “They're probably already over it. I hope they are because it was a hard-fought game.”