{"id":75251,"date":"2025-08-17T00:40:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-17T00:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/75251\/"},"modified":"2025-08-17T00:40:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-17T00:40:12","slug":"blue-jays-romp-of-rangers-reinforces-immense-roster-depth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/75251\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Jays’ romp of Rangers reinforces immense roster depth"},"content":{"rendered":"

TORONTO \u2014 Myles Straw<\/a> finished his swing, admired the ball as it sailed into the left-field stands and then flipped his bat. He was feeling himself on Saturday afternoon and for good reason.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That was the second time Straw went deep in the game and the second time he brought the buoyant 42,686 Rogers Centre crowd to its feet in the Toronto Blue Jays<\/a>\u2019 14-2 win over the Texas Rangers.<\/p>\n

It was the first multi-homer game of Straw\u2019s eight-year career. His four home runs in 2025 have matched his career high, set in 2021, and on Saturday alone, the outfielder\u2019s big swings accounted for 20 per cent of his career total.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re starting the day, you don’t really think about Myles going deep twice,\u201d said Blue Jays manager John Schneider.<\/p>\n

The manager also offered a review of Straw\u2019s modest bat flip.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThought he needs a little practice,\u201d Schneider said with a grin.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, it could be better,\u201d Straw said. \u201cThe first one, I thought I got it, but the second one, I\u00a0definitely\u00a0knew. So, I had to give it some kind of swag.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the surface, Saturday\u2019s victory was a feel-good romp for the Blue Jays, who improved to\u00a073-51 on the season and have won five of their last six. However, on a deeper level, the afternoon reinforced just how far this team has come in building its roster depth.<\/p>\n

Prior to the game, outfielder George Springer<\/a> was reinstated from the seven-day concussion injured list and, to make room on the roster, the Blue Jays optioned Joey Loperfido to triple-A Buffalo. Schneider said it wasn\u2019t an easy move to stomach because Loperfido had consistently produced since joining the club in early July, generating a 153 OPS-plus over 30 games.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI think at this point, there’s not really a person deserving of being optioned to the minors or sent down,\u201d said Schneider. \u201cAnd he understood that. He got that. Joey handled it like a pro.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Loperfido sat down in Schneider\u2019s office on Saturday morning, the manager looked at him and remarked, \u201cYeah.\u201d Loperfido sensed the demotion was coming and replied with a simple, \u201cYeah.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThese guys understand,\u201d said Schneider. \u201cThey all want to be part of (the team) but it’s part of it, you know what I mean? He was great. He’s going to go play. He’s going to go work on what he was working on and hopefully be back here.\u201d<\/p>\n

If there\u2019s one easy way to convey how the Blue Jays have built their lead atop the American League, it would be to survey their immense roster depth. Schneider said recently he noticed back in spring training that the organization\u2019s collection of major-league-ready talent far exceeded that of past campaigns.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou’re making lineups and a lot of times, even on road games or split squads, you have some guys with major-league experience, which is kind of uncommon,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, you could kind of see it, and then the hope is that everyone continues to get better or just be what they are and they can help out however they need to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Loperfido was sent down because there was simply no space for him with other bench players such as Straw performing. The 30-year-old Straw entered Saturday having produced 1.8 wins above replacement this season \u2014 for context, that\u2019s more than Teoscar Hernandez (1.5) and Jose Altuve (1.1).\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s a blessing to be here every single day,\u201d said Straw, who noted that before the game he decided to ditch the torpedo bat he\u2019d been using in favour of a longer, thinner bat.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI talk to guys about just how special this team is and how great the city is and just the whole setup we got. It’s been a blast here. I love this place. I love the people here. I love everything about it, honestly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don’t take a day for granted here.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Blue Jays opened the faucet on Saturday when Bo Bichette<\/a> led off the second inning with a single to left field off Rangers starter Patrick Corbin and advanced to third on Daulton Varsho<\/a>\u2019s single. Ernie Clement<\/a> followed with a double that plated Bichette, and Straw cashed in everyone else with a three-run homer to left-centre.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He did it again in the third frame, blasting a 2-0 fastball from reliever Jon Gray into the left-field seats for a two-run shot. Straw collected four hits and five RBIs on the day, while Varsho also recorded three hits, including his 13th\u00a0homer of the season \u2014 a 108.2-m.p.h. rocket to right.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Davis Schneider<\/a> added a three-run shot in the seventh against Rowdy Tellez, the former Blue Jays first baseman who was brought in to pitch the final two innings for the Rangers.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Eric Lauer<\/a>, another depth player who\u2019s shone for the Blue Jays this season, benefitted from the offensive tsunami. The left-hander surrendered one run on four hits over five frames to lower his season ERA to 2.76 across 88 innings.<\/p>\n

While Lauer isn\u2019t in danger of losing his spot on the big-league roster like Loperfido, he is on the bubble, in a sense. With prized trade deadline acquisition Shane Bieber set to join the Blue Jays\u2019 rotation this week, there is a scenario where Lauer could be moved to the bullpen, unless the club decides to deploy a six-man rotation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s a good problem to have because we got five, six good starters that are putting up good numbers,\u201d Lauer said. \u201cSo, I mean, it never hurts to add another one. It’s just how are we going to work the situation out?\u201d<\/p>\n

Lauer admitted it\u2019s not easy to completely tune out the noise around that subject, yet added \u201cyou always think like, if I’m doing my job, then it’s kind of hard to replace people doing their job.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just like Straw did on Saturday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, he exceeded his job,\u201d said Lauer. \u201cThat was career day for him.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO \u2014 Myles Straw finished his swing, admired the ball as it sailed into the left-field stands and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75252,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":["post-75251","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\/75251","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=75251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}