TORONTO \u2014 An exhale. An off day. An afternoon without another player added to the injured list. Most importantly, a win. The Toronto Blue Jays needed it all.<\/p>\n
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. caught a throw from Jeff Hoffman in the ninth, taking off his hat and raising both arms towards the closed dome above. The horn blared at Rogers Centre for the first time in eight days, signifying the Jays\u2019 4-3 win.<\/p>\n
A victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers brought an end to Toronto\u2019s tough week, one filled with injuries, illness and losses. It provided the Jays with a positive moment heading into a day off. It showcased a Blue Jays (5-7) squad looking a little more like the team they hope to be.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust get back to neutral a little bit,\u201d manager John Schneider said. \u201cShake hands, high five, get lights on in the clubhouse and enjoy an off day.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Blue Jays have been begging for a spark for the last six games, anything to reignite an offence and bring home a win. Over the last couple of days, after Toronto\u2019s string of losses, the club\u2019s manager called for a big hit. That\u2019s all they needed.<\/p>\n
Yet Wednesday\u2019s ignition came in a different form. Davis Schneider popped off Toronto\u2019s bench in the seventh inning, walking on six pitches and later scoring the first run in a rally. An inning later, Schneider watched four balls fly by once again. He darted from first to third on a single and then, after the ball skittered away from Miguel Rojas as Andr\u00e9s Gim\u00e9nez attempted to steal, Schneider bolted for home, too. He slid across home plate, popping up to slam his hands together in celebration.<\/p>\n
\u201cA big hit usually leads to a win,\u201d John Schneider said. \u201cSometimes it\u2019s scoring on an error that leads to a win. You need a win.\u201d<\/p>\n
After Hoffman closed out the ninth, Rogers Centre\u2019s horn cathartically blasted. In general, one-run wins in April don\u2019t mean much. They\u2019re drops in the big bucket that is a 162-game season. But after six straight losses and a growing injured list, Wednesday\u2019s win felt significant. It felt like one the Jays needed \u2014 or at least desperately wanted \u2014 to have.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s definitely a lot of fight in this group,\u201d Wednesday\u2019s starter Dylan Cease said. \u201cWe\u2019re not exactly thrilled with how we\u2019ve started, but nobody\u2019s panicking.\u201d<\/p>\n
Long-term, though, the greater significance of the Jays\u2019 win over Los Angeles is the method in which they did it. It didn\u2019t look like a fluke victory. They didn\u2019t run their way into some lucky runs. And it certainly wasn\u2019t a case of beating up on a weak opponent.<\/p>\n
Wednesday\u2019s win was the sort that the Jays orchestrated often last year. They scored first, for the first time in a week. Five Toronto hitters reached in the seventh inning, putting pressure on the Dodgers\u2019 bullpen. The team took advantage of mistakes and pushed for more on the base paths. Guerrero and George Springer each had two hits.<\/p>\n
It still wasn\u2019t perfect. Toronto stranded nine runners and Guerrero ran into an out at third early in the contest. There are still holes on this injured roster and there were mistakes that can\u2019t be made. But if the Blue Jays continue to play as they did on Wednesday, and get healthy, more wins should arrive.<\/p>\n
\u201cKind of fitting that we snapped this skid using almost everyone,\u201d manager John Schneider said, \u201clike we do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now comes the exhale. The off day was going to arrive no matter what happened on Wednesday. Toronto\u2019s first few weeks of the 2026 season seemed like they were all leading to this World Series rematch against the Dodgers. Now, it\u2019s over. Now, a day off. Now the Jays can move on to the rest of the season. If they meet the Dodgers again, it\u2019ll be in October.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s still 149 games left,\u201d Davis Schneider said. \u201cThere\u2019s still a lot of baseball to be played. Hopefully we can use this to jump start into a win streak here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO \u2014 An exhale. An off day. An afternoon without another player added to the injured list. Most…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":591424,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82,507],"class_list":["post-591423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports","tag-toronto-blue-jays"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591423","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=591423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591423\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/591424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=591423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=591423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=591423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}