Arden Zwelling

And the Blue Jays have better numbers against those elite starters than the rest of the league in like every category.

So the Blue Jays are hitting 232 against this group of elite starters.

Rest of MLB hitting 186.

And the Blue Jays batting average only would have gone up with nine hits off of Paul Skeen's.

ops wise the rest of nlb 553 blue jays 634 uh like it's pretty meaningful difference honestly the k rate uh and whiff rates obviously like way lower than the rest of the league because that's just the type of team of the blue jays are but i think that is sort of their secret sauce against really good starters we saw it in the postseason last year i think we saw it a lot more consistently during the regular season last year and i think that if the blue jays can like just

tap back into that a little bit and treat like the Carlos Rodon's or the Mitch Kellers of the world like those elite starters and bring that level of like grind and wearing on a pitcher kind of like a boxer like dragging his opponent into deep waters I think this offense can have more success than it's had to this point

is more athletic using his legs more in the batter's box then those are big steps towards getting this offense back to where it should be so cliche to say that he sets the tone atop the lineup but i think you saw that in the schemes start and just having him going uh coming into this game on sunday he was eight for 25 over his last six games and had three homers in that span like

i think people like don't necessarily and the kids have just now stopped like there's a few still on the base pass but just now stopped it's almost five o'clock game ended two hours i just had to i just had to update that um like people don't necessarily like appreciate how elite george springer was last year like we're talking about top five hitter in baseball so for him to be like a below league average hitter this year

It's just a huge drop off.

And this is like a dramatic reduction in production.

Yeah, no wonder the Blue Jays offense like hasn't been quite as productive this season.

But yeah, if they can get Springer back, probably not to elite levels ever again, but back to at least above average, like back to like maybe like the good area level.

borderline low great tier that's huge for this offense and I do think that like him having really discerning plate appearances atop the lineup helps other hitters in the order and like we're seeing other young hitters like take take a cue from that and like really have a good plan going into a plate appearances like Brandon Valenzuela here on Sunday who like not a bat first product right like and if anything I

uh, as prospect, like he was thought as just, all right, this guy's got some pop and he can leave the yard from both sides, but you know, it's just going to be a lot of swing and miss and maybe the swing decisions may not be great.

Well, like he has a six pitch walk in the fifth, a double in the seventh and a seven pitch walk in the ninth, like just some great plate appearances from, uh, who, the guy who was your third string catcher entering the season, uh,

Yeah, somebody's going to have to start carrying things, particularly with Kazuma Okamoto, who was carrying things for a while, hitting a pretty deep rut here.

He entered today's game, so Sunday's game, won for his last 28 with 20 strikeouts.

And hearing John Schneider talk about how

He's opening up in his swing and that's just hurting his ability to recognize pitches like away from him and to make contact with them and drive them the way that he has to.

I feel like we're going to be talking about like that outer third of the plate with Okamoto pretty much all year.