A dose of that heat seems unlikely to be a balm for a struggling Blue Jays offence, though, for what it\u2019s worth, Toronto has hit well above-average against fastballs this season, ranking eighth league-wide<\/a>\u00a0by run value (+11.3).<\/p>\n Still, there’s a difference between all heaters and the ones with above-average juice. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Blue Jays who\u2019ve done best against fastballs 95 m.p.h. or harder are the team’s biggest stars, while those who have struggled have tended to be their role players.<\/p>\n Here’s a summary of how the hitters on the club\u2019s current roster have fared against plus velocity (with Joey Loperfido excluded because he\u2019s seen less than 100 pitches that fit that description):<\/p>\n OPS vs. 95+ m.p.h. fastballs<\/p>\n If the Blue Jays are going to manage an offensive breakthrough over the weekend, it will likely be fronted by their highest-profile hitters.<\/p>\n Success of Tampa’s starters vs. Blue Jays<\/p>\n Not only does Toronto have some serious velocity with which to contend, but it also must match up against pitchers who\u2019ve given its lineup headaches recently.<\/p>\n The way things line up, it looks like the Blue Jays will face Adrian Houser<\/a>, Joe Boyle and Ian Seymour<\/a>. That isn\u2019t a trio of household names, but each has had his way with Toronto this year:<\/p>\n In two starts against the Blue Jays, Houser has pitched 13.1 innings, conceding just three runs. The veteran has faced current Toronto hitters 82 times, and they\u2019re slugging .284 with just two extra-base hits.<\/p>\n Boyle\u2019s start against Toronto on Sept. 15 was arguably the best of his MLB career. He held the Blue Jays scoreless through six innings with five strikeouts and no walks.<\/p>\n Seymour is a rookie with only four MLB starts total, but his outing against Toronto on Sept. 17 was undoubtedly his best. The southpaw allowed only one unearned run over seven innings in a win.<\/p>\n Add all of that together, and the Rays’ projected starters have pitched 26.1 innings vs. the Blue Jays in 2025 with a 1.03 ERA. Toronto will need a significant reversal of fortune.<\/p>\n There is no question that the Blue Jays miss Bo Bichette\u2019s bat, but it\u2019s also apparent that the team\u2019s infield defence is at its best with Gim\u00e9nez at shortstop.<\/p>\n Defensive metrics have long disliked Bichette\u2019s glovework, and while there isn\u2019t much data on Gim\u00e9nez yet, his work at short has ranged between smooth and spectacular.<\/p>\n Clement is an asset at either second base (+5 OAA) or third base (+6 OAA), and third has been Barger\u2019s best position as he\u2019s graded out at close to average (minus-1 OAA). Guerrero\u2019s defence is divisive, but he has his strengths \u2014 and\u00a0Kiner-Falefa can\u00a0boost the group off the bench or as part of a defence-first lineup construction.<\/p>\n The bottom line is that this group is stronger on the dirt than it was when Bichette was in every day and IKF was still a Pittsburgh Pirate. That\u2019s good news for the Blue Jays, as the Rays hitters have the highest groundball rate in the majors (45.8 per cent).\u00a0<\/p>\n Gim\u00e9nez and co. should be busy and may be able to steal some hits.<\/p>\n Dealing with Rays’ lefties<\/p>\n One thing that makes the Rays offence distinct is that the roster is packed with left-handed hitters.<\/p>\n Tampa Bay boasts seven lefties and a switch-hitter in its position-player group, which is simultaneously good and bad news for the Blue Jays.<\/p>\n Later in games, manager John Schneider may struggle to find matchups he likes with his bullpen. His top lefty \u2014 Brendon Little \u2014 has been uneven in the second half of the season, and his other two southpaws are each inexperienced either in leverage relief (Eric Lauer) or overall (rookie Mason Fluharty). All three of those pitchers has his merits, but the Blue Jays are more comfortable seeing right-handed bats late. That allows them to deploy Seranthony Dom\u00ednguez, Yariel Rodr\u00edguez, Braydon Fisher and Tommy Nance (who hasn\u2019t allowed a single extra-base hit to a right-hander this season) with confidence.<\/p>\n The good news for Toronto is that each of its scheduled starters has given lefty bats fits (albeit in small samples for Shane Bieber<\/a> and Trey Yesavage<\/a>).<\/p>\n Reverse splits can be mere statistical noise at times. That said, Gausman has been tougher on lefties than righties over the course of his 13-year career, Yesavage\u2019s arsenal has an unusual movement profile where every pitch fades to the arm side away from left-handers, and Bieber\u2019s\u00a0new-look change<\/a>\u00a0has made him more dangerous when he lacks the platoon advantage.<\/p>\n Toronto should feel good about its chance to quiet Tampa Bay\u2019s bats in the early innings over the weekend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Heading into their final series of the season against the Tampa Bay Rays, the Blue Jays are riding…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":170718,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":["post-170717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/chrome-capture-2025-9-25.gif\")
<\/p>\n