Broadcast schedule<\/a><\/p>\nTo get to the trade deadline at .500, the Blue Jays would have to go 11-5, something they\u2019ve done on one occasion this season (May 13-29). Given the state of the America League, they could buy even if they\u2019re below .500, but they can\u2019t wait long to start climbing back into the race. For instance, if they go 8-8 over their next 16 games, they\u2019d then need a 30-20 finish to reach 85 wins.<\/p>\n
Banking on two months of .600 baseball from a team that\u2019s often struggled would be a wild leap of faith Atkins might not be able to justify, putting pressure on the team to win immediately. With that in mind, a 9-7 or 10-6 record between now and the trade deadline seems like the absolute minimum if the Blue Jays are going to buy. To do that, here\u2019s what has to happen on the field:<\/p>\n
More consistent starting pitching\u00a0<\/p>\n
Too often this year, the Blue Jays have fallen behind due to poor starting pitching. To gain ground in the standings, they\u2019ll need that to change.<\/p>\n
That means they need Shane Bieber to find a level of consistency that has mostly eluded him in his four starts back from the injured list. To his credit, Bieber took a step in the right direction on July 10, limiting the Padres to just two runs while striking out four.<\/p>\n
But while Bieber might be stabilizing, Trey Yesavage is coming off the worst start of his MLB career. He couldn\u2019t find the plate Saturday, throwing a first-pitch strike to only one of the 13 hitters he faced while walking seven and throwing only 20 of 59 pitches for strikes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Afterward, he spoke about making an adjustment to his posture to fix his release point. Given the standings, the Blue Jays need that fix to work sooner than later.<\/p>\n
Along those lines, they also need continued health from Spencer Miles as he pushes his career-high workload further and further; they need continued quality starts from Kevin Gausman, who introduced a new windup Sunday; and though he\u2019s the least of their worries, the Blue Jays need more of the same from Dylan Cease following an All-Star first half.<\/p>\n
As the first half of the season came to an end, manager John Schneider would often point to positives on offence, such as the two home runs Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hit on the team\u2019s latest road trip or George Springer\u2019s 105 m.p.h. line drive against Mason Miller.<\/p>\n
Mix in Kazuma Okamoto\u2019s power production and the recent contributions of Jonatan Clase, and the Blue Jays do have reason for optimism here. Unfortunately, others have slowed down, with Alejandro Kirk, Brandon Valenzuela, Daulton Varsho, Yohendrick Pi\u00f1ango and Myles Straw all mired in month-long slumps.<\/p>\n
They don\u2019t all have to hit at once, of course, but the fact remains that the Blue Jays have outscored just three teams this season. If they\u2019re going to contend, that has to change now.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Nearly 100 games into the 2026 season, it\u2019s best to assume this edition of the Blue Jays is not a juggernaut. With that in mind, this team needs to handle the details better and flip its 11-17 record in one-run games.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2022 Fundamentally strong defence: Make the routine plays and ideally more difficult ones, too.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Better pitch selection by pitchers: Trust Kirk\u2019s game-calling behind the plate or have a very good reason not to. For instance, Mason Fluharty shook to throw Ty France a sweeper last weekend and France hit a game-changing home run.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Better pitch selection by hitters: Guerrero Jr.’s chase rate is a career-worst, but it’s not just him. Varsho and Andres Gimenez are among the MLB leaders in chasing pitches outside the strike zone.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Attentive baserunning: Some outs on the bases will happen, but the Blue Jays can ill afford lapses in attention.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Holding runners better: As Jeff Hoffman showed Sunday, there\u2019s a real cost to letting baserunners run wild. He and his teammates must do a better job of preventing opponents from taking extra bases.<\/p>\n
These so-called little things add up, and may make the difference in a crowded American League playoff race.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO \u2014 Baseball people like to say it\u2019s a long season and it\u2019s true, but the end-game can…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":768227,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":["post-807857","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\/807857","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=807857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/768227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=807857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=807857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=807857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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